


One and Two

by bell (bellaboo), bellaboo, usomitai (bellaboo)



Category: House M.D.
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Threesome, bigbang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-25
Updated: 2009-03-25
Packaged: 2017-10-12 16:19:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/126763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellaboo/pseuds/bell, https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellaboo/pseuds/bellaboo, https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellaboo/pseuds/usomitai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amber decides to make Wilson happy by adding House to their relationship, and realizes that by doing so, she may have subtracted herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of help along the way! Kit and Rawiyaparand discussed with me the mechanics of the story and Amber characterization; Jougetsu, Anna, and Teresa11 read drafts and cheered me on; Oldblue and Alanwolfmoon pulled out their red pens and corrected my work. The fic is better because of their help. Diverges from canon starting from episode 4.14 Living the Dream.
> 
> And, look! ART MADE FOR ME:
> 
> [](http://house-bigbang.dreamwidth.org/17575.html)  
> by [](http://euclase.livejournal.com/profile)[**euclase**](http://euclase.livejournal.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> [](http://house-bigbang.dreamwidth.org/17210.html)  
> by [](http://euclase.livejournal.com/profile)[**euclase**](http://euclase.livejournal.com/)

It seemed like a good idea at the time. I wanted James to be happy, and I couldn't see how he could be without-- without a bit more in his life. So I added, but I guess the final result does always end up in two, no matter what numbers you plug in. Maybe by adding, I subtracted myself from the equation. You'd think I could remember the fucking basics to algebra.

It started on the first day we took off together, after one year of dating. "One whole day," I speculated, twining our fingers. "Just for the two of us. We can have sex the whole time, or sleep, or play cards, or go for strolls--"

"I'm not sure we should do _any_ of those for a full twenty-four hours," James said, and I laughed. James' thumb rubbed against the center of my palm. "Ten to one we'll get interrupted, with work paging us, or--"

"Or House accosting us?" I drawled. James smiled sheepishly in admission. "We'll just have to revert to stone-age communication: no pagers, no cell phones... maybe TV."

"We don't need TV," James said, pinning me to the bed. I squealed, and the wrestling match started in earnest. And what do you know, we didn't need that TV one bit.

We slept in, since we'd stayed up all hours having sex, and we treated ourselves to more make-outs when we woke up. I'd have been happy to stay there all day, but James gave me one last kiss before rolling out of bed. "Oh, c'mon, give me one good reason why we can't stay here all day!" I exclaimed.

"Variety is the spice," James said. "C'mon, I'll show you."

Again, James proved himself right by making the best, thickest, richest Belgium waffles. Don't gag, but we fed each other, the syrup dripping on to our clothes, the table, the floor. We gave up on utensils and fed each other with our hands, nibbling at the waffles and then sucking on each other's fingers.

Yeah, I know, too sweet. But what do you want? We were-- are-- in love. Just being with him, sometimes, I feel like I'm overflowing, with-- I don't know. Like I have too much feeling, and it has nowhere to go but to spill out, towards him.

"Ready for more spice?" James asked me once we loaded the dishwasher and cleaned ourselves up.

"Let's have at it," I hooked my arm around him and we went out.

We strolled aimlessly in the afternoon summer sun, going first for long tours around the neighborhood. We eventually reached a commercial area, complete with an electronics store. I looked at him hopefully, and he didn't even need to hear my proposal before saying, "Go for it."

We went in, and he watched from the sidelines while I haggled with the manager for a discount on a 24-inch flat screen, making a scene about James' up and rising software company. When the store packed up the screen, together with a top of the line fridge and an oven toaster, James took my hand and whispered, "And we're returning it all?"

"Yeah," I grinned at him, squeezing his hand.

That evening, James prepared a bath for two. A bit cheesy for a couple already passed their one-year anniversary, but James loves them.

"It's amazing," I told him, pulling him towards me by the collar, grinning. It really was: the candles shone softly over the walls; a light aroma of and incense filled the room; and roses littered the floor.

James grinned back with that soft happiness I only see when we're alone. It's such a fragile happiness, like he doesn't believe it's his and he's half-waiting for it to be taken back to its proper owner. My poor, sweet, silly James. It's things like that that makes me worry about what would happen to him if I left him. I'd be fine on my own, but I'm not so sure about him.

He pecked my lips before he reached for my back, slowly undoing the zipper to my strapless red dress (I look amazing in it. It's not all that comfortable, being one helluva of a tight dress, but it's nice to dress up, sometimes, to get undressed.) It pooled to the floor, matching the roses, and wow, it sounds stupidly extravagant, now.

His lips ghosted over the nape of my neck, and I arched towards that touch; let him run the palms of his hands over my bare sides, opening up to him. James exhaled sharply, his face burrowing itself on my shoulder. Strands of his hair tickled my cheeks, my nose. "You know," he said, nuzzling his face against my skin, "I used to think that getting bored with someone was a part of all relationships, but..." he lifted his head back up, looking down at me. He had on a big, goopy smile, and something warm trilled inside of me. Happiness. "I never get tired, with you."

"That because love isn't boring." I kissed him on the nose, quick and sweet. "Now let's get into that bath before it turns to ice!"

"As practical as ever," he teased.

Am I overdoing the details? Going over this, it's hard to tell what's extraneous, what's vital. I don't want to go overboard with information, but I don't want to paint an incomplete picture, either. I need to compare how loving (from our perspective), or how sickening (from everyone else's point of view), we were. Not that we weren't without our issues.

I stripped James slowly and we dipped into the tub. The water was just right; that's my James, doing everything perfectly. (House would call it his knack for manipulation, and I hate that he comes to mind so easily. But it's inevitable, I guess.)

James leaned against the back of the tub, and I against him, my back aligning with his chest. His neck and shoulder formed a natural pillow for my head, and I nestled there, the tips of my hair floating on the water. I took a long, deep breath as he wrapped his arms around my stomach. "God, we should do this _every_ day."

"Yeah, soon as we find the time," James sighed. "I barely even see you at breakfast." He didn't not have a point; I do work a lot, trying to put together a killer resume. What he didn't say is that he's the one that spends the strangest hours at the hospital, all because a certain best friend.

But I wasn't in the mood for a fight, so I let it pass. "That's not fair-- you see me at night too, when I make sure you get laid." I felt his laugh all over me as his stomach and shoulders shook. So much better than fighting.

James, kissing along my neck, took the back of my right hand and glided it suggestively towards my crotch. "You won't," I said, "be able to follow through on that promise." As wonderful as my James is, he has his limits. Physical ones, too.

"C'mon," he nudged my ear with his nose. "Let me watch."

"We have to start renting porn," I admonished. " _That's_ how we can sate your voyeurism." But I'd already taken the hint, probing my fingers around my outer lips.

"But I prefer to watch you," he murmured. And with his lips tracing patterns on the back of my shoulders, the hot steam, and me fingering myself, I tingled all over with a familiar sensation.

And that's when the theme to Mission Impossible started to play from inside the medicine cabinet.

I twisted my head back to glare at him accusingly. "James, do not tell me you left your cell phone on."

He winced but despite his guilt, he was already getting up, droplets of water falling over me and the water level dropping as he left the bath. So much for my impending orgasm. "God, I _told_ him to only call if it was an emergency!"

"He'd consider boredom an emergency," I muttered, but to no avail. James got his cell phone out from the medicine cabinet, as if he'd hidden it there expecting a call all along. I can't say I wasn't hurt, but I wasn't surprised, either. I knew better than to think James would cut off all contact with House for more than a few hours.

James answered the cell phone with a bark: "What?" He grabbed a towel with his free hand and wrapped it round himself. Me, I just draped my hands over the edge of the tub, resting my chin on my fists and watched him, sullen. No matter how I looked at it, facts were facts: he'd promised the day for me, and however much James loved me, he couldn't give _him_ up.

James looked all the more exasperated as he walked out, water droplets trailing down his legs and leaving a trail on the floor. House had James hook, line, and sinker, and all he had to do now was now reel him in.

Sighing, I unplugged the bath, got up, and rinsed the suds off with a shower, the water slowly sinking around my feet. I listened to James' soft coming from the living room as I dried myself off, and picked our clothes up off the floor.

By the time he got off the phone, I was in sweats, reading a book in our bed, on my stomach and my feet up in the air. He looked so forlorn, the ends of his hair tapering into wet clumps, barefoot, and dressed only in a rectangle of cotton. He bit his lip, guilt rolling off him like a man in court explaining why stolen an old lady's purse. "House, he--"

I bounced off the bed, landing before him with a skip and a hop to regain my balance. "Go do what you have to." I know friends are friends and I have never, not once, imagined that I could tell James how to pick them, much less how to make them (him) less of a pain in our asses. Things are what they are, and I understood that. But James winced at my tone. "Really, go. Though you'll probably want to get changed, first."

He smiled wryly. "I don't _want_ to go, you know."

I rolled my eyes at him. "Yes, I know you'd rather spend the evening with me turning into two red prunes, but House has cried out for you because-- what's his crisis, this time? He hates himself again, but he'd rather hate you, which is easier to do when you're in the room?"

James' smiles twitched. "Something like that. He's in a bar drinking his weight's worth in booze and I don't want him doing anything stupid."

"Isn't it a bit late for that?" I asked lightly, and James hung his head.

But he left anyway and, alone, I poured myself some wine, unable to keep myself from reflecting about how differently I'd envisioned this evening. I wasn't crying over spilt milk, exactly; just feeling annoyed that I had to clean it up.

A goblet of wine in hand, I went out to the mini-balcony extending from the bedroom and sat in one of the wicker chairs, staring out at the pine trees behind my apartment complex. I felt so pathetic that I almost called my sister Rose (my parents are literal-minded, yes). But I was really in the mood to listen to her.

I'm a radiologist. And, no, that's not a tangent, I'm bringing it up to make a point. A lot of people have no idea what radiology even means, but basically, I read different kinds of images and I analyze them. I find the problems. I'm good at it, too. And that's what I did that night.

I could never ask James to cut House from his life. For one thing, how lame a request is that? For another, I know that I lose, in the priority game. It's a sucky position to be in, as a girlfriend, but there you have it.

Sighing, I tipped my glass back and drained the last of the wine.

I was starting to shiver in the cool of the summer night when my cell phone rang with James' ring tone ("Umbrella," and no, I don't want to hear a single word about my taste). "Aaaaamber," James said, his voice distorted like a melted vinyl record.

Loud, repetitive electronic 'music' blared in the background; so they were at a bar for barely-not-kids. No wonder House had been depressed, if he'd been surrounded by twenty-year old specimens of our species, still mostly untarnished and hopeful. "How are you?" James slurred.

" _I'm_ fine," I said, pulling my feet to the edge of the chair, hugging my knees. "But how much safer are you going to make House's night, if you're that drunk?" Men. Honestly! Even at forty they need baby-sitters. That's why I stopped dating for so long, preferring to just fuck; 'significant other' shouldn't have to mean 'mother.' And James is better about this more than most, but he still has his moments.

"We'll get a cab," he promised. "House needs company, can't do that without drinking."

"Doesn't matter what you do, he'll still be crazy."

"Why, Amber," House's chiding voice came on the line. He must've grabbed the phone. I held it a little farther away from my ear-- it felt like I'd reached into my clothes drawer and pulled out a snake "You're hurting my feelings, here! I thought you liked me." His diction was much better than James'. Had House sobered up?

"Whether I do or not," I said, relaxing again after the surprise at the transfer had passed, "it doesn't change the fact that you're a few screws short, House."

"Oh, if you're flirting with me, then you _must_ like me."

That's House for you: offer him sympathy and he'll treat you like you're an annoying, simpering idiot. Insult him and he'll take it as a come on. It doesn't lead to healthy relationships, but it does make for interesting conversations.

"Your 'James'," House continued, "is making faces. Don't be jealous, Wilson, you've known all along that you're not man enough to hold on to her forever. Of course she was going to be tempted by the tall, mysterious best friend with a dark past."

"You mean the tall, whining, self-sabotaging drag of a responsibility?" I asked.

"Stop it!" He said, pretending to be shocked. "I'm right in front of your love toy, this is obscene! I can't be a part of your infidelity! Unless you're wearing something sexy. Are you?"

"Oh, I couldn't tell you; it's so sexy it'd blow your mind." I got up and stretched; with the wine flowing through me, I felt pliable. "And pass the phone back to James."

He muttered something about being unable to follow up on promises, and then James' voice returned. "'M back. Sorry 'bout that."

"Dogs lick their balls, and House does the social equivalent. You can't apologize for nature."

"You can't, can you." He sounded amused. "I'm gonna be here a while, okay? Don't wait up for me."

"I'll do what I want." I leaned over the balcony's ledge. All was quiet, strangely hushed. Then again, it was late, and a work day awaited everyone tomorrow. All the good Princeton-Plainsboro residents was winding down, getting ready to sleep. Though there isn't really such a thing as "good." That's just another shoved down our throats to make us behave.

"Miss you," James said, then, "I love you."

"Love you, too," I said, and then I hung up on him. I hate it when 'I love you' becomes a substitute for 'goodbye.' Because how much can 'I love you' mean if it's following routine?

I went back in, poured myself a second glass and felt-- not that I'm proud to admit it-- pretty sorry for myself. I loved a man who loved another man more than he loved me, I told myself coldly, like I was looking at some stranger's x-ray. The diagnosis was complete. The next part: deciding on a course of action.

I couldn't sleep, so I stayed up with who knows what book, half-reading, half letting my mind wander. It was well after two when I heard voices: James' (too loud for that hour) and House's (loud as well, but he was probably speaking at that volume just to annoy the hell out of me and the neighbors).

They talked at the door, their words muffled. They were there for so long I wondered why they didn't come in, but James' broke out into an uncontrollable fit of giggles, and I understood. Stupid drunk men. Sighing-- I did mention how I'm not into mothering my men, right? -- I got to my feet and unlocked the door for them. Good thing, too, because I think they'd have stayed there for an eternity otherwise, with James digging through his pockets and House supporting him, his left arm around his waist. He didn't have his cane.

It was like a revelation, stumbling on to that private moment-- or maybe House meant for me to see it, to stake his claim? I don't know-- with James giggling into House's side, dead drunk and relaxed and trusting, like he was in good hands. I just-- I understood at that moment. No. That's not right. I'd known all along. A radiologist who blinds herself to the evidence right before her very eyes... Well, who ever said that love makes us rational?

And don't think that I missed the way that House held onto this trusting, drunk James-- he didn't even have his _cane_ , for crying out loud. Like in supporting James, he'd found a better walking aid. House was completely sober-- I could tell, I can always tell-- and before he smoothed his expression into calculated standoffishness, he looked at James dopily. Like, like-- like the way I'd probably been looking at James until House's phone call, a few hours earlier.

Though, to be honest, House's feelings for James were no great revelation.

James was still patting his jeans. "They're here _some_ where," he swore. "Just have to find some-- I mean, where--"

"Thinks that's redundant now," House said.

James looked up and stared at me, his whole face squeezed into a frown. "Izzat--" he lit up with recognition and a wide grin. "Amber! Amber, I missed you!"

The uninhibited joy in his voice and his garbled attempt to reach out for me-- if he didn't fall, it was because I caught him in time-- went a long way in making me feel better about what I'd just realized. If nothing else, I hadn't been wrong to think that he loved me. You can't fake such a flawless a lie when you're drunk, you just can't. In those seconds, his love for me was so clear it hurt me. Why hurt? Because it meant everything was still so very, very complicated.

While I tried to keep both myself and James upright, and as he nuzzled my neck, muttering incoherencies which I'm sure he meant as sweet vows, I transferred my irritation to House. "So tell me," I asked, shifting to distribute James' weight better, "how did he end up shit faced when it was your drunk ass he'd went to comfort?"

Yeah, I worded that well. Freudian slip, I guess.

House shrugged. "Don't blame me. I sobered up, he drank to excess. By the way, he left his car at the bar's parking lot." It was only after he'd vanished into the elevator that I realized I had no idea what bar they'd gone to. Typical House, that, holding on to whatever cards he can.

"Asshole," I muttered. I shuffled back to our bedroom, holding James up with his arm around my shoulders.

"Wha?" he asked blearily. James' happiness had worn off and he was descending back into a drunken blur.

"Nothing. Here's the bed. Think you can lie down?" With some help from gravity, I got him on it and he flopped, stretching with the kind of inhibition you can only get when you forget all the details.

"It was great," he rambled. Drunks, so honest; he wouldn't have admitted to that so easily if he weren't flooded with booze. "House can be so funny-- when he's not in one of his moods, that is." I tried to figure out where to put myself. Eventually I took the awkward position of kneeling in the center of the bed and started to undress him for the third time that day. No, not for seduction-- he was in _no_ condition to get or give pleasure-- but to get him ready for sleep. "I wish you'd been there." He smiled sloppily at me-- he really meant it-- and I smiled back.

Remember the idea I mentioned, earlier? Yeah. It came to me then, with a James who seemed so fantastically happy with so little, but what I alone couldn't provide for him. And that's why I said it. It came out easier than pulling his shirt over his head. "We should have sex with House."

Like I said, it made sense at the time.

James' languid jubilance fled the scene. He sat up, staring at me. He looked comedic, really, because with his poor motor skills and that glare, he looked like he was imitating a cartoon villain. And his hair was so tousled it was hard to take him seriously. "What?"

"You heard me." I ran my fingers around his abdomen, exaggerating the movement of my lips. It gets him going when I do that, if you know what I mean. Even drunk as he was, it still had an effect on him. "A threesome: you, me, House."

He tried to put a hand over mine to stop me from caressing him, I guess, but he lost his balance and fell onto his back. "I knew I drank too much," James blinked, staring up at the ceiling.

"I'm serious!" I lay down next to him, propping my head up with my hand. My other hand found his and squeezed it. (I love touching him, love feeling his writing callus, the way his finger joints slightly swell.) "We should sleep with House. All three of us, together."

James groaned like a bear growling at the bees keeping him from the honey and shut his eyes tightly. I knew better than to press the issue further... that night, anyway.

I didn't want to lose James-- or in general-- but love isn't about who's the best, the fastest, the smartest. It just is. I know it is. And when I saw James being that way with House, when I thought of what I knew about their history together, I-- I got scared. I saw myself losing. And, for once, I was willing to settle for a tie.

That next morning, James was curled tightly in bed with a pillow and a half over his head. He gurgled at me when I came in with a breakfast tray. "C'mon," I prodded him. "You have work soon, and you'll feel worse if you don't eat at all."

He moaned piteously, which actually made me smile. He'd dug this grave all on his own. But, in retrospect, I wasn't really in a position to mock him, since by then I'd started to dig one of my own. "Who hated humans so much they invented alcohol?" he asked.

"We did, apparently." I set the tray on my bed stand. "But we evolved from monkeys, so what do you expect? We don't have a knack for making the best decisions."

He made some noise-- it certainly didn't sound like human speech-- and slowly peeled one of the pillows off his face, peering at the bowl I held. "That doesn't smell revolting."

"Yes, that's exactly what I aimed for: not-revolting." I crossed my legs and pushed the oatmeal towards him (something simple for his currently weak stomach).

James half sat up, shoving behind him the long, blue pillow that had been his provisional helmet, and picked out a miniscule portion onto his spoon. The face he made when he put it in his mouth wasn't too bad. "You've succeeded," he wheezed.

"Hey!" I ruffled his hair, sat next to him, and slid an arm around his shoulder. "Aren't you a bit too hung-over for sarcasm?"

"Maybe I was just pretending to be hung-over." I guess he was encouraged by not having thrown up the first bit, because his next portion was literally a spoonful.

"Don't forget to drink," I handed him the glass I'd left on the tray. He obediently took a few sips. (He always listens to what I say. This is both a good and a bad thing.)

Maybe-- maybe it was because I felt so secure, taking care of him, maybe it was the soft morning light streaming through the closed purple curtain, maybe I wasn't thinking right, having a mini-hangover of my own. Whatever it was, I blurted out: "Did you think more about having sex with House?"

He choked on the water, spitting about half of it back into the glass and maybe a third on his skin and bed sheets. He couldn't answer until he'd coughed and had another sip of the water he'd just spat out. "God," he choked, "I thought I'd made that part up."

"Oh, you actually remember." I squeezed his shoulder. "Then it must've stuck out for you; I bet you don't remember anything _else_ from last night." He didn't contradict me. "And you haven't answered my question. Did you?"

"I'm supposed to dignify that with a reply?!" He was suddenly flushed, burning up. "It's crazy, Amber! What are you thinking?!"

I pouted. (Immature, yes, but it gets results.) "Most boyfriends would die to have their girlfriends suggest a threesome."

James-- rudely-- shoved the bowl onto the bed. "If you invited another _woman_ , maybe."

I snorted. "I've seen the way you look at him-- hey, where are you going? You barely ate!" He was gingerly slipping out of the bed and, from his grimace, clearly feeling some aches and pains.

"Not hungry anymore," was all he said. He got to his feet and stood tall, as if he wouldn't be lurching all over the place once he started to walk. With a deep breath, the kind that doesn't ever make difficult things any easier to say, he looked down at me. (His eyes were almost crossed; it's one of the effects of his lazy eye). "Amber, I know you mean well, and I'm sure you think it's a generous offer, but no. Never. Please don't ever bring it up again." He nodded once, like someone who'd just accomplished something great, and retreated, half-bent, to the bathroom.

Not once did he say he _didn't_ want a threesome with House. He'd said "no," and "never," but those side-stepped the question of what he wanted. So, yeah, no matter what he'd just said-- or maybe _because_ of it-- the gears were still turning in my mind. James' 'no' had been green light to me.


	2. Chapter 2

Once again I left the discussion aside, and I dropped James off at his PPTH-- which I do almost every day, even when he can barely walk, much less drive. Plus, we still hadn't gotten his car back, from whichever bar parking lot he'd left it in. I dropped him off, we said goodbye, and I went to work.

I had the afternoon to myself, so I set on a last revision of my article "Diagnosing Lupus through Radiographs" before it headed off to print in "Acta Radiologica." Not NEJM, no, but I've been featured there before, so I've already lived that particular dream; my next goal is to get into Scientific America. (The content is questionable, but the readership is huge! It'd make my family read my work, for once. Someday, someday.)

Yeah, I've been publishing articles. The first ones I managed to get out, a few months back, were about the cases I'd worked on under House. I hate that, actually. Before that my articles used to just get rejected. But make references to some big name, and voila! Suddenly acceptance letters flood your inbox.

So, yeah. The game sucks, but I know the rules, and I play it well. After I made a name for myself-- by using House's, yeah, but it's not like he's not letting his rot uselessly-- I started putting out again my older stuff. Which, incredibly enough (do I need to note the sarcasm here?), have now been accepted for publication.

Unfortunately, I don't know everything. For instance, what was the latest opinion on the adverse effects of x-rays on patients? It isn't my field, but I know it's a source of frequent squabbles, and I couldn't put down just anything. That's an easy way to get reamed with criticism!

So I called Peggy Phillips at the Vanderbilt Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. Yes, hard as it is to believe, I do have contacts beyond my family and my boyfriend. Not everyone hates my overachieving guts. We help each other out: I rub her back, she rubs mine -- only without actual massages. "Hi, Peggy."

"Hi, Amber," she replied. "What do you need me for today?" (It's _such_ a relief to find a fellow anti-bullshitter!) We discussed the finer points of radiographs and she promised to email me relevant articles.

"Okay, thanks," I said, glancing at my watch for the fifth time in seven minutes. "I'll talk--"

Peggy talked over me before I could say goodbye. "Our hospital could use more goal-driven people like you. And I'm sure you're going to become _very_ well-known in radiology, the go-to scholar."

"Awww," I said, and let myself bask. Compliments are rare in this cutthroat business. (And, yes, I've been called cutthroat myself.) But compliments are coin, too. They don't come for free. "What's the big favor you want?"

"That you come work here." She sounded serious enough. It's hard to tell, over the phone.

"I'll think about it," I promised, but I didn't mean it. It was crazy! She and her hospital were all the way out in butt-fuck-nowhere Arizona, and even if I'm always on the lookout for chances to advance my career, I couldn't leave James. And James can't leave this city, not with House anchored to the one hospital that would pay him and all of his anti-ethical, lawsuit-attracting whims.

I wouldn't have moved to Arizona even if they opened up a job in my dream field, diagnostics. Dreams are beautiful and great, but they couldn't beat the amazing and unexpected love I'd found with James. Dreams could go fly kites and jump in lakes, if it meant giving up my existing happiness.

But today? Yeah, things change, and Arizona doesn't sound so bad, anymore.

I'm getting ahead of myself, I shouldn't do that. Anyway. I tinkered a bit more with the article, based on what Peggy told me, sped through the remaining paperwork of the day, and stuffed what could be done at home into my briefcase.

Rushing, I managed to drive out early to the PPTH.

On my way up in the elevator, I checked myself in my compact (my make-up still looked as good as when I'd redone it back in my office) and smoothed out my skirt: crimson, tight, and with a slit up to here. I look amazing in it, if I may say so myself. While I myself wasn't the selling point, I couldn't be repellently disgusting, either. It was a package deal, after all, and you don't buy a pair of shoes if one of them has been chewed up.

(When James saw me, that morning, in the outfit, he'd stared. "You-- you _always_ look beautiful, but this--"

"It's to give you something to look forward to, when we get back home," I lied. I hate lying to him, but a woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do. And it shut him up on whether or not the skirt was workplace appropriate or not.)

I strode past James' office (the fact that it has no windows out to the hallways has been very helpful, usually because no one can see us fucking in there, but it's also great when I need to slip by unnoticed) and into House's department.

Lucky for me, House was alone, his back to the glass wall. I took that as a good sign. (There are, of course, no thing such as 'good signs.' We see what we want to; I could've just as easily said that the overcast weather was a portent of bad omens. How's that for literary foreshadowing?) I quietly opened the door and slipped in.

His eyes were trained to the board, looking for the secret treasure hidden in the sum of those words; his hands gripped that ridiculously oversized tennis ball so tightly his hands trembled.

House could use a good lay, with that kind of tenseness. "Huh," I said, and he turned towards me sharply. Even with his mind stuck on the mystery du jour, his gaze lingered over my body. (I'm 100% certain he's jerked off to the tune of me before. I'm 99% sure he's done it dozens of times. But that's a story for-- never, really.) "Like there's more than one disease at work here."

His voice came out gruff, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but his voice is one of his sexier traits. "If you mean the STDs you picked up at the brothel, go to the clinic."

I smiled as sweetly as I could. "Thought I'd come here first and pass them on to you, as a thank-you present for everything." He snorted, and kept his eye on me as I strutted from the glass divide to his side. (That walk is great for power play and seduction both. Sad that we have to use our bodies to prove our fucking competence, but I play to win, always.)

"But seriously," I tapped the top of the board, and House almost sputtered with indignation. He's so protective of that thing. And no wonder: he didn't have a person he could really be possessive of. Though I bet he'd still be crazy about that board, even now. "There's too many unrelated symptoms to be caused by just one thing."

House had this superior sneer before I'd finished my sentence. "See, you weren't here for that lesson: Occam's Razor."

"Who said two can't be the best solution? Like here, it could be jaundice and iron deficiency anemia."

House grunted, but he didn't insult me: "I should call them back," he said under his voice, more to himself than to me.

If the team was coming back to play pin-the-diagnosis, I had to get my message out fast. "You should have sex with James and I." Simple, fast, to the point (just the way House likes it. Out of bed, anyway).

Shock was just one of the many things I saw flit across House's face, but he ended up settling for derision. "Nice try, but April Fool's is long gone. Though it would've been great to see the look on Wilson's face when he found me naked in his bed, right?"

I raised an eyebrow at him suggestively. Sometimes, words only get in the way.

House's derision turned to incredulous, consideration; I was making progress. But before I could get in any more convincing, James opened the conference room door. "Amber?" James poked his head in. "I was looking for you!"

Time was up. For the moment. "Think about it," I suggested in a deep voice, and went for my James, pecking him on the cheek. House was shaking his head behind us, and I knew that the idea was taking seed in his mind. It'd give birth to a wealth of images and fantasies; let him simmer in them, I thought. I'd come back later to seal the deal, once his base had begun to crumble as the ideas I'd planted took root.

"What were you doing with House?" James asked, no hint of suspicion in his voice. He's not a jealous man, at least, not with me. I used to think it was because he trusted me, and now-- maybe he just doesn't have it wired into him, being jealous over a woman. Or maybe he never desired me enough for complete possession. I don't know.

"Just wanted a try at solving the latest mystery," I said, linking my arm with his.

"You're just like him-- too curious for your own good," James said, squeezing my shoulder affectionately. "You look fantastic, by the way."

"I know."

James and I had sex as soon as we got home, against the hallway wall by the entrance, not even bothering to reach the bedroom. That doesn't have any relevance to what I'm getting to. I just wanted to bring it up because-- because I wanted to remember, that, James and I together, his fingers in my hair as he kissed me, my hands on his hips encouraging him to go in deeper-- Shit, I shouldn't think of that.

* * *

The following day at work, my garden salad about half-eaten, I called up my sister Rose. "Hello, Gorski residence," she answered. I could hear shrill shrieks in the thankfully distant background.

"Hey, Rose," I said, stabbing a piece of lettuce out of my half-eaten garden salad.

"Amber," she sighed. "I've told you a thousand times that you can't just call me whenever you feel like-- I'm not sitting around at home doing nothing, you know-- Kevin, stop throwing tootsie roll wrappers at your brother!"

I chewed while she talked. "You want to have _that_ conversation again? And nice to talk to you too, Rose."

"As long as you keep on thinking I'm a lazy bum with nothing better to do than-- oh, wait a second--" Rose put the receiver down, probably to deal with the shrieking that had gotten too loud for even _me_ , all the way on the other end of the line. I tackled the remaining leaves of lettuce in my Tupperware container.

She could be doing so much better than wasting her life as a full-time mom.

Rose came back, eventually, all quiet on her end. "What do you want, Amber?" Like sister, like sister. Even as kids she thought she knew best: Amber, don't track mud into the house; Amber, don't date that drum player; Amber, go to the college offering a scholarship.

"Remember House?" I asked. "The guy I wanted to work for, James' friend?"

"Yeah, sure, House, the bane of your life. I know him." For the record, I don't actually call him that. Though I do call him "that asshole," "my evil ex-boss," and "the proof of my boyfriend's bad taste," amongst other things.

"Yeah, him. So I'm trying to get him into a threesome with me and James, any suggestions on how?"

First, "Amber, my children are right in front of me," in her weary your-stupidity-never-ceases-to-amaze-me voice, and then, "I assume there's Earth-logic behind this?"

"Oh, lots of Earth logic," I promised. My mouth was full, since I was eating the last, and best, part of my salad: a ripe cherry tomato that exploded in my mouth.

"Are you talking with your mouth full?"

"No," I swallowed. "Anyway, James is in love with House, so I figured it'd be better if he got it out of system while I was there. Exploding the bomb in a controlled environment."

"Oh, Amber," the you're-stupid tone had subtly shifted to you're-hopeless. "Have you _ever_ heard of a ménage à troi that ended happily?" (Rose doesn't speak French, nothing beyond what you'd learn in a couple of years in high school, anyway. But her pronunciation is okay.)

"I haven't studied threesome history, so, no, I can't list the happy, blissful cases. C'mon, don't you have any suggestions? Words of wisdom to pass on?"

"Mostly, don't be stupid. And why are you asking _me_ , anyway?"

When I was six, I tried climbing onto Rose's two-wheeled bike and scraped myself something awful. For months I refused to get on my own four-wheeled bike, and no amount of sympathy or coddling from my parents would make me go near it. It wasn't until Rose disdainfully sneered at me, 'coward,' that, overwhelmed with embarrassment and shame, that I mounted that bike again. Within two weeks I didn't need the training wheels anymore.

This phone call was me trying to get that same effect: motivation to get back on my current equivalent of a two-wheeled bike. But I wasn't going to tell her that her disapproval was my incentive. And I did have another reason for calling. "Because you had a threesome going back when you were a sophomore, right? With Geoffrey and... who was the other guy?"

Rose hadn't actually ever told me the details, but the rumor mill, you know how it goes. I would've dismissed it all as garbage information, but when I poked about her room just to be extra-sure, I found a box full of intimate notes hidden in her not-so-secret hiding spot behind her bookshelf. The messages varied from 'let's ditch class' to 'I love you in that dress' to simply, 'I'm sorry.'

The messages were written in two distinctly handwritings.

"Amber," Rose warned.

"It's okay if you want to keep it to yourself," I said with annoyance, to make her feel guilty. "Just thought you'd want to share the pearls of your wisdom with your little sister."

"I _am_ sharing the pearls of my wisdom: don't do it."

The phone beeped. "There's someone on the other line. Might as well go, if you're not sharing." I didn't give Rose the chance to say goodbye before hanging up on her. Let her stew in her guilt, I figured; she might break down and confess, later.

"Dr. Volakis speaking," I answered the incoming call.

"Amber? It's Peggy."

"Oh, hi." I ran through reasons why she'd be calling me: she'd already emailed me the articles I'd asked for yesterday, which meant that she wasn't calling for something _I_ needed. "Need help with something, Peggy?"

"Actually," she said, "there've been talks about it for a while, but now it's official: our hospital is opening up a diagnostics department, the first in the state."

I bit my lip. My dream position(s) would be available, once more... out of reach. But I put on my best game face--voice. "Oh, that's great! Though you'll probably regret it a few months in, when the through-the-roof expenses come in... anyway, if you need any recommendations for the post, I know some of the best people in the field."

("You can play the cutthroat bitch," James told me once. "But nobody'll like you-- except for me, of course, I love you-- and you won't have any connections. You're charming, Amber. Use that to your advantage." I got the underlying message: "don't be like House." I've been trying to follow that advice).

Peggy laughed. "Maybe later, but we need to start with a head, and I've already got my recommendation: you."

"Oh," I couldn't help but utter. Sometimes, people can really surprise you. (That's another lesson James has tried to teach me, about how not everyone is out for themselves or to screw you at the first chance. But this time, I've got to side with the more Housian point of view, that we're all selfish assholes and that #1 always, always comes first.) "Me?" I said, stupidly, then grinned to myself as the realization hit: _me_.

"Yup," Peggy said. "We're looking at a couple of other candidates as well, but I know your record, Amber. You might not have much experience, but you're good at figuring things out. You _have_ to apply."

Still, I held back a sigh. House was here and, therefore, so was James. My heart anchored me to New Jersey. "Thank you," I said. "I'm definitely going to look into it."

Just because I couldn't take the job didn't mean I'd slam the door shut! If nothing else, I could meet the hospital director, be all smiling and pleasant and get some me some new contacts. (James would be so proud!) Or I could use the threat of a new job to get some perks at my current on here.

"Good!" Peggy replied. "You should get in touch with Dr. Brown, I'll send you his contact information."

I still think of it, sometimes. What it'd be like to have employees of my own to lord over, of the pride having _my_ name as the head of a department. It's tempting, that's all I have to say. Really, _really_ tempting.

* * *

After work I went to pick up James, as part of our routine. (That's the thing about relationships, you fall into a pattern. It's not a bad thing. There's security in stability.) I found him in his office, his desk covered with papers and his computer still running Excel and Word. He didn't look up as I came in.

"Running late?" I asked; he kept on typing, pointedly ignoring me.

He wasn't overworked, just pissed off. At me.

I crossed my arms. "What is it?" (And this is one of the lessons I've been trying to pass on to _him_ : cut the passive-aggressive bullshit. He's gotten better, but sometimes he still slips. This was not one of his crowning moments of glory.) "I told you 'no,'" James said, tense and head still down. "I told you 'no' _twice_ , and you still-- you still--"

"And, why, exactly are you being pissy about the threesome right now?"

James finally looked me in the eye. He was glaring in that cold way he has, recriminating and self-righteous, like you're a compulsive gambler or something equally unforgivable. I bet it used to make his exes crumple up, but I'm not like them. "You told him."

In retrospect, I should've at least asked House to be discreet. Not that it would've done any good.

I ran a hand through my hair, feeling stupid. I could join James in his temper tantrum, kicking and screaming, or I could play the adult. "Well, we had to ask him sooner or later, if he's going to join us."

"Going to--!" James sputtered.

"What do you think?" I sat down on one of his plush leather chairs. I would've preferred to sit closer to him-- like, on his lap-- but he was too pissy for that. "Was House interested? I thought his reaction was pretty promising, though, to be fair, if a one-armed paraplegic propositioned him, I'm sure he'd want to hear more."

"Amber!" James covered his face with his hands, hiding. Of course, I wondered _what_ he was hiding. "How many times do I have to tell you? _No_. It's not happening."

"It's not the number, it's how convincing you are. Not once have you said 'no' like you mean it," I said, becoming colder. I hate denial, it's just another form of bullshit. James' hands slid forward until they only just covered his nose in a sort of prayer. But he didn't try any new denials. "You coming home, now?" I asked, when the silence had gone on for long enough.

"Have work to do," he said, avoiding eye contact. James is such a coward, sometimes. Did years of hanging around House condition this behavior in him? Or was he trained to act this way during his childhood? Probably a bit of both, mixed in with his character type. (I do love him. Doesn't mean I can't criticize.)

"If you don't want to see me, just say so," I told him.

It was his turn to sigh. "I want to be alone."

"Good boy, that's better." I said. "You're still a step or two away from hitting home, but at least it's more honest than saying you're working late." James gave me a wry look, so very like him-- ironic and infuriated but loving-- and I knew then we'd be okay. We always were okay, even with our occasional squabbles and our large collection of flaws.

I walked behind his desk and pecked him on the forehead. James accepted the gesture sullenly, like a stubborn kid who wants to hold on to the silent treatment even after the fight has been resolved. "Don't stay too late, okay?" He nodded.

Not half an hour later, I was knocking on a dark-green door. No answer. I knocked again, banging forcefully. The door rattled. "You're gonna pass up on the company of a beautiful, long-legged blonde willing to bang you?" I yelled. Use arguments that work!

The door opened slowly, like a curious dog approaching a seemingly dead animal, ready to spring back at the first sign of life. From behind the slight crack, House cautiously leered at me, playing along with my 'joke' and simultaneously defending himself against any potential punch lines.

"I don't trust freebies," he said. "They usually have more diseases than the professionals." He was still in his version of work clothes: jeans and a shirt painstakingly designed to look cheap and casual, the kind you can only get by forking over hundreds of dollars. House primes his sloppiness to an art.

"Guess sleeping with you would prove your point, since that's a pretty stupid risk to take," I shot back. Dealing with House's banter is a matter of not letting his words get to you (easy, when your self-esteem is high, not so easy when you're teetering) and then aiming lower. Strangely, I'm actually better at it than James, who forgets half the time you can't let House catch you taking him seriously.

I brushed past him into his place.

"Wasn't this supposed to be a threesome?" he asked.

I strode into the bathroom and checked the sink cabinet: no booze. Last time I was here, some months back, that's where he was keeping his you-spent-how- _much_ -on-booze? bottles. He changed hiding locations, again. I'd have to settle for the decent-but-not-great alcohol in the kitchen, then. "Not so fast, House! Let's have a bit of seduction, first."

I got us drinks (a malt whiskey for him, a Californian Merlot for me-- I prefer cosmopolitans, but as if House has ever hosted a cherry in his home!) and sat down. I stared at him expectantly and he eventually caved, sitting down and grabbing his whiskey. It´s not so hard to get him to do as you want, you just have to be firm and, well, offer him what he wants. "This is why I pay for sex, no seduction," House muttered.

Light was still shining through the windows on that late summer evening. I can remember it so clearly, like I'm there right now, with House across from me in a brown leather couch, arms crossed and armed with suspicion. Me, I leaned back, confident, swirling my wine and smelling it (rich, deep, oak).

After our non-conversation (you can't call a string of mockery an actual conversation) we didn't speak for a while, taking our time to drink and watch each other. Who the hell knows what House is ever thinking, but me, I was trying to read him. Like with James, I saw possibility that dared not admit itself. If House wasn't taking the offer at least a little seriously, he'd still be taunting me, rather than studying me intensely the way he was, like I was one of his cases that needed solving.

House looked good. He's got a million unattractive qualities, like his selfishness and his disdain of common grooming habits, but his looks are in his favor, especially with the dying sun's light emphasizing the handsomeness of his face, the strong muscles in his upper arms. (Was James drawn by House's looks? Or is it his personality, that pulls James like a magnet?)

House wasn't and isn't my first choice in a second partner, but he was-- is-- James'. I'd make do. I could more than make do.

Sipping at my wine (dense in alcohol, bitter, biting), and watching House watch me, I tried to imagine kissing him. He'd like it rough, I imagined. Nips and bites and forceful tongue. His five o'clock might feel good. But I figured I wouldn't have to kiss him much, since the connecting figure in this threesome? Was James, not me. Me and House making out would be like Lancelot and Arthur sucking face while Guinevere waited impatiently in bed-- maybe that example isn't the best one, since the sexes don't match our case... Anyway.

"How did the case go?" I asked, just to get a conversation going. We did have to talk, eventually. House looked at me inquisitively, so I added: "Your Occam's Razor."

He practically guzzled his malt before answering. "You were wrong about iron deficiency anemia." It was my turn to look at him questioningly. "But right about jaundice," House conceded, mumbling. "He had jaundice and Hodgkin's Disease."

I smirked and leaned my head against the back of my seat, pressing against the gently-ceding upholstery. "So I was right, about two being the simplest solution." Here's a thing about House (there's a lot of them): he doesn't like being jabbed at. He'll jab right back at you. So, me having jabbed at him by pointing out that I was right about the case? I'd basically painted a target over my face and called open season. I knew that. I jabbed anyway, thinking I could handle anything he tried to hit me with.

"You know," House said lightly, oh so fucking lightly, and sometimes thinking of him _pisses me off so fucking much_ , "I've already done the nasty with Wilson."

The words literally made no sense to me, in the first few seconds after I'd heard them.

"And I've posed for Playboy," I scoffed.

"Seriously." If you've ever been on the receiving end of one of House's serious looks, baby blues all sincere like a dime-a-dozen love ballads on the oldies radio, you'd find yourself believing him, too. "We've done it. More than once." And he shrugged, like it wasn't a big deal.

"Then why don't I already know? He hasn't told me, you haven't told me. What, did the both of you just forget? Or it wasn't interesting enough to make jokes about?" (I know I've chastised James for denial/bullshit. But just because I chastise doesn't mean I'm perfect. I fuck up all the time.)

It was the way House turned his head away. It wasn't embarrassment, exactly. But the movement, small and slow, screamed 'deeply personal and awkward subject at hand!' And that's why I believed him. That involuntary twitch to look away-- so self-damning and dignity-preserving, in his own space. Like he'd just remembered something, and was trying to turn away from what was in his head. "Oh my god," I think I said. And maybe, "I have to go."

I got up, leaving my glass on the floor, filled with undrunk drink.

I had to see James.

I don't know why it upset me so much. If I'd been rallying to get James into a threesome with House, how could the fact that they'd already had sex-- especially if it was _before_ I met James-- get to me? If I already knew that they loved each other, in their bizarre and probably twisted way, what did it matter, if they'd taken that last step? The betrayal had already happened; no, it wasn't even a betrayal, if James had loved House before I'd entered the scene.

And, geez, sex is just sex. There are more important things.

I don't remember a thing about that trip. Nothing. I just remember arriving and finding James' Volvo parked out in the front. So not only was he back home, but he'd gone and gotten his car back from wherever he'd left it that night he'd went out with House. I felt all the worse, that I hadn't helped him get his car back.

James opened the door as I walked up the front steps. He was in old, worn jeans, a button shirt, his glasses-- soft edged and rumpled and so, so domestic. He looked exactly like he does, when I come back from work. Like home. "Amber?"

He looked so worried, his face crestfallen. It confused me, at first. Did he know about the conversation I'd just had with House? But the edge of his mouth tugged, like it does when he's overloaded with guilt. He was still stuck on his temper tantrum from earlier. James didn't know there'd been an update to our fight. "Where have you been?" he asked.

I stood in the entrance hallway, my briefcase heavy in my hand and James, my dear, sweet James, before me. Just behind him was the wall with a mirror and the painting of a sunflowers my mother gave me as a present for my first apartment. Both of us, we used that mirror several times a day, smoothing out hair and straightening collars before heading out the door.

I felt so lost in the home I built with the man I love. "Why didn't you tell me you've slept with House?" Straight to the point and straight to the gut.

James' split-second reaction-- that sudden tensing all over, in his shoulders, in his brow-- told me everything. It really was true. I covered my mouth, a wave of heat coming over me, the kind I get when I screw up in front of an audience. His hands clenched into fists. "It was a long time ago."

"How long?" The heat overcame me again. So, so stupid. So blind. It was in their every gesture. It was in that hovering-proximity they fall into so naturally, near but not together. Like they'd been burnt. It was in James' tenderness, in House's possessiveness. "What happened?"

James shook his head and something about the movement, it was like he was filled with memories he wanted to be rid of. I admit it, seeing that, I softened up. James is a deeply private person, and while he may tell me everything, some things take longer, right? "It wasn't-- it didn't mean anything, Amber."

"If it didn't, why didn't you tell me?" I asked softly, twisting my fingers over one another. That. That was what that upset me the most, I think. The lying. And it was lying, even if by omission. "What happened?" I echoed the ignored question.

He felt so far away and alone, standing right in front of me, shoulders and head drooping. Even though my insides twisted with hurt, I raised my hands to cup James' face. My fingers are always so pale against his face, so much smaller. "What happened," I whispered.

James sighed, eyes downcast, but he held his hand over mine-- big, warm, familiar. (God, I love him so much.) "It-- it was after the infarction." I nodded. I'd heard bits and pieces of the events that keeps House hobbling and in pain to this very day. I still don't have a clear picture of when, why, how, who, but however it played out, looking at the mess it left behind in so many broken lives, I don't need the details to know it'd been bad. "Stacy had just left, and-- it was just to give him relief, Amber. Just that."

Is that how you justified it to Bonnie? I wanted to ask. I didn't. It'd shut him up, an accusatory question like that. "How many times do you think you have to say 'just' to convince me?" I asked. The side of his mouth twitched. "Relief how--?"

He closed his eyes. I moved my hand over his cheek, stroking. "Just-- hand jobs. He was so frustrated, Amber, in those days. People think he's difficult now, but, god, it's nothing compared to then, rotting in his wheelchair, never moving-- I thought--"

Images sprang to my mind. House in a dark room, the blinds down, in a wheelchair that could barely navigate the narrow spaces in an apartment decorated without a thought to disabilities. The wheelchair would make a racket as it rolled, because House wouldn't let anyone care for it properly.

James must've stumbled in on House with his hands on his dick, trying and failing to get off. How would've House taken it? With hostility, or with relief? Or maybe it hadn't been in the wheelchair, but in bed, on a day it hurt too much to get out-- so many possibilities. I could come up with thousands of scenarios. It'd be better not to. "I was just helping him out. I thought it'd make him feel better," James said.

I listened. More than anything, I wanted to ask about the hows, whens, and whats, but I knew it'd get me less information than patience. (My father fished, as a hobby, and he tried to teach me that kind of patience. I never did manage to fish quietly for more than ten minutes.)

But James was feeling it out, whatever it was that he was feeling, eyes still closed, breathing regular as if he was forcing himself to stay calm. "Sometimes," he said quietly, "Most of the time-- he would say things just to hurt. I think it was the only power he thought he had left, being cruel. The relief brought his temper down. A little."

So little said, so many implied possibilities. House, now as a man in charge with a sort of structure to his life, a job, and limited locomotion, was cruel enough. I can only imagine what he'd been like, caged and wounded and biting at everything that came within reach, including the hand that fed.

James stopped talking. "Anything else happen?" I asked, soft, soft, soft. I had to tread carefully. What I really wanted to know was: why and how did it end? What implications did it have for James and I? For the threesome I'd been planning?

He gave this short laughing sound, but it wasn't a laugh. Or maybe it was, and the joke was on him. "Not really. We stopped, after a while."

There has to be a reason why they stopped. There _has_ to be. Things don't stop just because. Did they never like it? Had it been embarrassing and mortifying and hurried? Did House put an end to it, once he was out of his wheelchair and wanted to regain his dignity? Was it James, saying it wasn't healthy for House, but actually worried about himself? Did James tell Bonnie, or did he tell himself it didn't count because this was a 'medical treatment,' done with the selfless motive to help his patient recover?

But, patience, patience. I made myself think of my father, sitting on the moss-covered stone bridge over that thin stream, so silent, so still. He eventually caught fish. We ate them. Are there fish to catch here, with these questions?

One thing is for certain: the sex couldn't have ended peacefully. If it had, James and House wouldn't be so sensitive about it, a decade later.

Though I was a good girl, silent and patient, James kind of jolted, like he was waking out of his thoughts and back to me. He gave me what I'm sure he hoped was a reassuring smile. (It wasn't, but it was so James, in his don't-you-be-worrying-about-me style. I didn't know if I should be exasperated or love him more. I did a bit of both.) "Like I said, it didn't mean anything. I was his human vibrator."

My other hand slid up the back of his neck and ruffled the hair there. "Once I caught him going through your bank account statements," I said. James blushed. "He gives me the third degree every time we go out, trying to find out what we do. I don't tell him, of course, but you can bet he's waiting for the day I let something slip. He calls so the two of you can watch stupid debates on CNN   
together, over the phone. Seems to me he's pretty invested in his human vibrator."

Maybe it's surprising I was trying to convince James how much House cares about him. It isn't, though. Even knowing that they'd already been together, even though I'd been hurt by James' lies by omission, I still want the same thing. I want James happy, no matter what it takes. And how can he be happy, thinking that someone he loves sees him as a disposable machine? House is petty and selfish and cruel, but he loves James more than that. Reminding James of that was the least I could do. It wasn't like it was a threat to James' love for me.

"He's possessive about everything," James dismissed. "I've seen him go ballistic over someone drinking from his cup." I gave him a no-bullshit look. "You're making mountains out of molehills."

"The fact that you didn't tell me?" I wrapped my arms around James' neck, bringing our faces together so that we were nose to nose. "Proves that those molehills are bona fide Mount Everests."

His arms encircled my waist, pulling our bodies to press up against one another. "I didn't want you to make a big deal out of it, especially after you got the threesome idea into your head."

I could hear the unsaid part: 'I didn't want to add more fuel to the fire.' Well, I was about to throw a lit match into a pool of gasoline. "You know, when I talked to House about it? He was into it. He was _very_ into it."

This, this-- this _wistfulness_ rippled through James. "Don't joke with me, Amber." His voice had dipped into the lower registers. At least he looked into my eyes intently. If House's baby blues are pretty convincing, then James' chestnut eyes can convert those of the strongest faith.

"I'm not," I promised. I spoke so close to his face, my lips brushed against his chin. "Do you think I'd get us into something that'd hurt you?" He said nothing. "I do it because I love you, James." I whispered. It was like trying to talk a limping dog from out of hole so that I could help with its injury. "I think it'd be good for you."

James didn't say anything. I think he'd didn't even know how to reply. Because either he'd be lying, by telling me to stop, or he'd admit to loving House by accepting my proposal. My heart sped up, waiting for his reply. Whatever decision Wilson took, a decision that could change the rest of our lives, was the path I would follow.

Finally, finally, finally, James shuddered all over, like the temperature had fallen to below freezing in a split-second. "I trust you." His thumb stroked my cheek, slow and tender.

It was the closest he come to saying that he wanted this threesome. "I'll take care of it," I promised, smiling wide and confident. Yeah, confident. Why not? I was on the verge of getting James what he'd longed for all these years. Did that make me the world's best girlfriend or what? (The right answer is: the world's best girlfriend.)

But my heart still thudded. Even as we had sex that night-- in our bed, James over me and my legs around him, traditional and safe as if we were reassuring ourselves of something-- my mind raced with thoughts of getting what we wanted, and what it'd be like. For all our deep kisses, I felt like we were worlds apart.

I told myself I was too focused on planning to enjoy the present.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, while James showered, I nabbed his cell phone, scrolling through his message box. I felt half-guilty; I've never been through his correspondence before. I told myself I was doing this for a good cause, and kept on reading.

Most of messages to House were curt, like, "Not leukemia," or, "Maybe cancer." Some were jus strange: "Don't cook melon roll tonight." I eventually found an appropriate message, the succinct "Lunch @ Seattle's Best."

I resent that message, from James' cell phone to House's.

What? House would've never come if I'd been the one doing the inviting. And I didn't want to have our next conversation in a familiar terrain, because then House would cling to the world he knew. A new, neutral space could provide a subconscious shove towards new horizons and possibilities. As much as House hates boredom, he's also terrified of abandoning his rut. Look at how he ran that hiring circus to avoid thinking about the new people he'd take into his life!

I finished the message just in time to put it back where I found it, on the dresser, as James came out of the shower. "Morning, Amber," he smiled and pecked me on the lips.

"Morning, James" I replied before darting into the shower.

At Seattle's Best, I ordered a glass of water and sat at a table towards the back, so that House would have to walk well into the room before spotting me. If he could saw me from the door, he probably wouldn't come in.

Forty three minutes past noon (good thing I brought something to read, the latest NEJM), House came in, shoulders hunched but not leaning too hard on his cane. He shuffle-stepped, head bent and eyes scanning the room.

You should've the exasperation on his face when he spotted me. I'm sure he would've turned tail and run-- that is, walked quickly-- if I hadn't gotten up. His eyes flickered down to my exposed legs (I was in a purple-and-white knee-length skirt. I was selling a product, so I had to show off my assets), visibly healthy and clearly able to outrun him, if need be.

Scowling, he thumped towards me with his lopsided walk. "Give it a rest! Does Wilson know you're here?" He spat this last bit as more scolding than actual question. What does James see in him, again? No wonder they didn't keep going whatever weird sex thing they had.

He was angrier than I'd have expected. Maybe he was regretting, out of embarrassment, telling me what he had last night. He'd told me about sleeping with James to get me off his back, and if I was still harassing him, he'd revealed a sensitive piece of information without the desired effect.

I had to be extra-patient, then.

"As a matter of fact," I said, licking the remaining water off my lips, slowly, purposefully, "he does." That wasn't factually true. James didn't know I was with House, much less where. But he _had_ given me a thumbs up to do what needed to be done.

So I didn't think I was lying, which, in most cases, is all you need to convince others you're being honest. House frowned. "Liar," he said. Hey, I did say 'in most cases', a category House makes a point of not belonging to.

House was still on his feet, glowering at me from above. "Does it make you feel safer, thinking I'm lying?" I asked. His glower shifted into a more cautious look. "Sit down. Have a drink. They don't have anything with alcohol, but it's a bit early for that, even for you."

"It's _never_ too early, around you," House said, but sat down anyway and popped himself a Vicodin, like he expected to need its kick very, very soon. All for show; the "I'm-in-such-pain" whining he usually pulls is to get more leeway. By getting an inch as a cripple, he takes ten miles. I'm sure that when the pain is really getting to him, that's when he keeps it to himself. He certainly wouldn't flash his orange container as a drama-queen beacon for attention.

"You," House said like he was starting up a numbered list, "know that Wilson hates your wild orgy idea." I stayed quiet. If House had to run in his squeaky hamster-wheel of a thought process, so be it. "But you still want to convince me, because if I accept, Wilson will get angry at me."

God, House can be so paranoid. "Yes. Exactly. I see good times coming."

He breathed in through his nose. "But he'd get angry at you, too. You wouldn't do that, Ms. Perfect Girlfriend Supreme. You're doing this as a prank, and when I've made a fool of myself, he'll have a good laugh."

"He'll split his sides." It was kind of sad, seeing House's insecurities out on parade like this. He's so used to finding mirth in other people's humiliation that he assumes everyone else does the same.

He went on as if he hadn't heard me, following only the logic of his own thoughts. "No. Wilson does things to make a point. He asked you to do this, to teach me a lesson that'll shape me into a finer human being, fitting his own twisted vision."

What kind of lesson would you learn from being invited to a threesome? Honestly!

"House," I said firmly. "We're serious. This isn't a joke, prank, or a lesson."

"Wilson isn't that guy," House countered. "Has never been, will never be. I'd know by now, if he were."

I still wonder what House meant by 'that guy.' It couldn't be that James wasn't capable of cheating on a significant other, because his history had its share to say about that. And it wasn't that James couldn't love the both of us, because, again, history (and present) proved that wrong. That was why I was doing all of this, precisely because James _did_ have too much love for his own (everyone's) good. Maybe House meant James wasn't into experimenting with foolish things like threesomes. That was it, probably.

I didn't ask. I hate semantics, it's just more bullshit. "You'd be surprised," I stared straight deep into his eyes, willing him to see just how serious I was. James was counting on me, after all.

House frowned, but speculatively this time, like all the gears in his head were calculating the possibilities; like long-lost dreams were awakening.

I'd done my part. "Think about it," I said (though he already was), and left. Abrupt? Yes. But the less we talked, the fewer arguments House could think up against the threesome. And anyway, I'd done my part.

I don't know how I got through the rest of the day. At one point, when I was taking a fifth coffee break in two hours, I stared out the window for over ten minutes as I stirred the milk into my coffee. What did I see? Damned if I can remember. Probably the same dreary skyline of grey and aging buildings.

House would've returned to the PPTH by then, I figured. I thought of how he'd probably avoid James for a bit, unless he'd decided to pull out all his guns and be loud, brash, obnoxious-- no. More likely they'd bump into each other by accident, wishing that they would, half-scared of it, too.

Would they speak? Innuendos, maybe. "Wanna bang?" House would ask. "Got the time, just missing a condom and common sense." No, I thought, still staring out, stirring absent-mindedly. It'd be a silent meeting. They'd dole out half-words that lumped together into incomplete sentences. They'd been avoiding talking about this thing between them all these years, why would they start now? Just because I made them?

Stirring too hard, I spilled burning hot coffee all over my hand. "Oh, shit," I hissed, wiping with the closest thing available: my shirt. "A burn and stain in one, way to go, Amber," I muttered to myself. My one consolation was that no one was around to witness my brilliance.

In the bathroom, water running as I scrubbed at my shirt with the foamy but ineffective liquid hand-soap, my thoughts turned back to those two. I saw them stopped mid-track in one of those oak-walled PPTH corridors, hands useless at their sides. They'd gape and stare and gaze as they tried to read each other's minds through sheer eye contact! (Stupid boys. _Talking_ is how you find out what the other person is thinking. Wanting. In love with you.) Maybe they'd get it. Maybe they'd finally get that neither one of them had been screwing around, when they'd been, well, screwing around, and they'd nod. Just like that. They'd resolve it all with mutual nodding.

Or maybe they wouldn't get anything from that encounter, just as they'd failed miserably to understand each other on this one small but vital point. And life would go on as before, me with James, and James and House stupidly in love right in front of my eyes.

Look, for all my doubts, that last option sounds worse. At least forcing them to admit their mutual love/lust/idiocy, I can make a more honest evaluation instead of blindly groping around like a thief in the dark, hoping everything would be okay. I believe that much. It's better to have it all out in the open, available for dissection and observation. How do you get a proper diagnosis without knowing all of the symptoms?

My vigorous rubbing only earned me a giant wet spot on my shirt in addition to the stain, which I hid with the extra sweater I keep around for disasters like these. My hand kept on smarting even after applying vitamin E.

My hands and shirt weren't the only victims that hour. Within the next forty-five minutes, I'd lose a patient history-- had to rewrite it from scratch, to the annoyance of the vitriolic, diabetic divorced hog-- and dropped a thermometer. A glass one. Yeah.

Waiting jitters, I told myself. Nothing more, nothing else. I do hate waiting.

(I really wanted to call Rose, then, but she'd notice my anxiety, and that'd be tantamount to admitting my idea was beyond crazy.)

I was mid-yawn as a clinic patient regaled me with accounts of her never-ending cough ("It started up, and I remember this because my husband had just bought a new lawn mower at Sears, though I told him that with the economy down in the dumps--") when I got a page. From James.

I jumped to my feet. "It's an allergy, avoid pollen for now, come back if it gets worse," I recited in a rush before I bolted. Am I proud of that, as a doctor? No. But as a person with a very personal life, I can more than forgive myself. Hell, I'd give myself a medal for taking care of my personal shit before I made any more professional fuck-ups. And I haven't heard of her coming in since, so I guess she took my advice and didn't get any worse.

Privacy, I needed privacy! My office was whole floors above, all the clinic rooms were taken, and forget finding solitude in a first-floor bathroom of a public building. The closest and best bet was the janitor's closet next to the guy's bathroom, so I slipped in there. Tiny, but empty! I turned on the 60-watt light, locked the door, and hoped the ammonia fumes wouldn't kill me. "James?" I called, leaning against the door.

"Oh, god, Amber," his voice poured in anxious. But it didn't sound like the bad kind, like when two of your tires are flat, the nearest gas station is fifteen miles away, it's after midnight, and you have a lethal fear of the local raccoons. It was more like getting a grant to carry out a research you think you're not able to carry out. Excited but scared. "I think it's really going to happen, what do we do?"

All my nervousness melted away, and I slid down the door a couple of inches. James was panicking. At _me_. He was asking what _we_ should do. He needed me. It's sad, but it reminded me that he loves me. I'd really needed that reminder. Suddenly, I was smug and proud like a cat after a good bit of self-grooming. "Calm down, James, what happened?"

He took a deep breath. "Not sure. I just saw him. We passed each other-- we couldn't talk, his fan club was trailing after him-- and I know how ridiculous this is going to sound, but he raised his eyebrows at me, Amber. ...Okay, that sounds even worse out loud than it did in my head. But it was like he was... I don't know. Asking me something. God, I've gone crazy, haven't I."

"Oh, come on, James," I smiled. Now that I was secure of my place, I could afford to take everything lightly. "Have a sense of humor. And you're not crazy. I thought it'd happen exactly the way you said it did."

"Any chance you could put that future-reading talent into winning the lottery? We could donate to my wing, or to House's malpractice insurance. ...Wait, how _did_ you know?"

"By being amazing," I replied, still smug. I paced around the room, or as much as the space allowed me, flowing with energy. I was stuck walking in circles. "That and I talked to House today. Seemed like he was on the verge, so I figured he'd be falling by now."

"You _are_ amazing," he said, honestly. I grinned even wider. "But--" he said, anxiousness returning like a singer that really shouldn't have tried to a comeback. "Oh, god, Amber, what do we _do_? I've never done this before! And it's House, so anything that can go wrong will go triple-wrong--"

I could see how those two, stupid as they are, hadn't gotten back together in all these years. I guess I should be grateful, though, since then I got to fall in love with James. And I'll never regret that. Never, no matter what happens. "We could do it the traditional way," I said. "Wine, dine, get him dead drunk, and ravage him. Works for couples, don't see why it wouldn't for trios."

James laughed. I do love that sound. "Traditional with House! It's so crazy it might even work."

"Of course it'll work," I said. I was starting to go dizzy from the cleaning-product fumes and the circles I was turning. "I'm a mastermind."

"Amber, what are we doing?" There was wonder in there, a bit of fear, and more excitement than the first time we'd recorded having sex. Maybe it was that reluctance of James' to try anything new that House meant about him not being 'that guy.' I like to think so. James does long for conventional, and he hesitates to dip out of that comfort zone.

"Living life to the fullest," I reassured him. "It'll work out, you'll see."

"Hope so," he breathed. "I love you."

"Love you too, James." And that was that. My brilliant plan was working. Time to 'enjoy' the results.

* * *

"He'll say this is crap, he always does," James remarked that evening. He was in his sky-blue apron, which protected his brown polo shirt and dark blue jeans. He looked so very casual. But I'd watched him spend half an hour rooting through this wardrobe, going back and forth on what to wear. A t-shirt? No, too informal. Button-up shirt? No, House would mock him for hours. Casual takes work! I think the only reason James hadn't gone back to change again is that I bet him ten dollars he would.

(Me, I was wearing a crimson pencil skirt, a black blouse, and had my hair down. Unlike James, my casualness wasn't feigned. I picked the outfit in seconds. I'm old hat at difficult dressing decisions. That and I wasn't fighting against almost ten years of unresolved sexual tension. Not directly, anyway.)

"'Who threw up on the plate,'" James intoned, (badly) imitating House as he slid the unbaked quiche into the oven. "Or, 'I'd have bought kibble, if I knew we were having dog food.'" The quiche, despite the danger of future insults, smelled and looked fantastic.

I'd set him to cooking not because I thought dinner was an especially good way to start the night-- I'd said "wine and dine," but I'd meant "wine and fuck"-- but because it'd keep James occupied. He wouldn't admit to being nervous, but he would be, and it was better to get a delicious meal out of his restlessness than watch him climb the walls. This kept him from jumping up every five minutes to make sure there was beer in the fridge, or that we'd changed the soap in the bathroom (as if House would care about that last detail!).

"We could get him actual dog food," I offered. When I worked for House, I saw him go through whole days living off nothing but vending machine snacks. Anyone who can survive on plastic sandwiches and potato chips should consider kibble an upgrade! And that's without mentioning what House keeps at home as food. If I were the bleeding-heart kind, I'd have wept for him upon witnessing the contents of his fridge. "I'm sure he'd eat it." James snorted.

James' quiche really _is_ fantastic. I know he knows I like it. I know he also knows it's one of House's favorite dishes. Watching James' back as he rolled up his sleeves and set to washing the plates and pots he'd dirtied, I wondered how much more I was going to learn about House. I already knew what he ate, what he was like when waking up, his sense of humor, how he props up his feet when he watches TV. I was going to have to learn his favorite fucking positions; what kind of dirty talk turned him on; just how much of James he was going to hog; the _noises_ he made when coming. God, he'd be a loud, I knew. A loud, obscene bastard.

I rolled up my own sleeves and started to dry the items James washed, just to keep my hands busy. I hadn't thought much, so far, about what the threesome would actually be like. Figured it'd be better to do than to imagine (shudder) in advance.

"And he's going to be late," James said in a mixture of reprimand and matter-of-factness. "He'll waltz in after the quiche's gone cold and we're in bed, sleeping."

"Then he can join us." The time had come. Drying my hands, I opened the fridge to where a row of wines awaited (I'd stocked up; we'd need all the drink we could get our hands on) and picked one up. I'd been putting this off, knowing James' weakness with alcohol would go as well with a night of planned debauchery as injections go with crybabies. Not a pleasant combination. (If I'd been half-hoping that the wine would have the bonus of floppy dick, then that was counter-productive to me. But the mind works in insidious ways.)

"He'll join us, press his cold feet against us, and whine about work," James muttered.

I poured him a glass of wine. "Then kiss him, that'll shut him up." When I pushed the glass towards James, he was frowning slightly at both the drink and my comment.

"Okay, but I won't be able to do much besides kiss him if I get sloshed!"

"Awww, just work some magic with those hands and mouth," I grinned. "Those have saved our relationship often enough!" He smiled back, for behind the teasing was a compliment.

He swished the wine in his glass contemplatively. "Amber, what's this going to do to us?"

He wasn't talking about the wine, I knew. It was the first time either one of us had asked that question-- out loud. It was last-minute, especially by our standards, but I had an answer ready. I took his glass, drank the remainder, and held his hand. I stared deep into his eyes. "We're going to love each other. You'll be happier, which will make me happy, even if House is going to drive me psychotically crazy."

James' thoughtfulness turned to another frown. "I was hoping this won't end with you driving the business end of a machete into his head."

"Don't worry, that's not my style. I'd poison his drink instead, since it's more likely to work and I wouldn't get caught."

That got James to smile and he pulled me in, kissing my forehead. "The minute you want this to stop, you tell me," his lips brushed against my temple.

"What, you think I'd _let_ you do anything I didn't want? I can take care of myself, and you know that." I looked up at him. "See, if anyone was going to get the machete in the head for messing with me, it'd be you. Crime of passion."

Funny, but the threat made his smile softer. "I know." He pulled me in tighter, our bodies fitting together against in that perfect way they do. "I also know you get hurt more easily than you'd admit."

"As long as you don't run off to LA with House, leaving me to spend the rest of your days celebrating in non-stop gay pride parades, I'll be fine. Now you stop worrying about me!"

"Not worrying about you; worrying about _us_."

James' body suddenly didn't seem to mold so well against mine, like we were trying to fit a Lego piece into an electric socket. It took me a second to understand: the problem was with me. I'd stiffened so hard I was practically pushing him away. "Is there a reason to worry about us?"

He took in a sharp breath. "Of course not, Amber. I love you."

"Good." I nodded. "Make sure you keep on doing so. Now go check the quiche." (Pride. Hadn't wanted to admit that anything, even fucking House, could change us. Mess up what we had going.)

Of course, House was late, as predicted. Over two hours late.

He banged on the door, and James and I, curled up against one another on the couch, jolted. Not because we're not used to him impatiently rapping his cane against our door, but because, well. We'd been waiting and tension had mounted, like a thesis defense that had been delayed a week. (I'd have preferred the thesis defense to this.)

After the initial jolt passed, James' face lit up with excitement, but shyness, too. I knew what he was thinking. "Too chicken to go alone to open the door to the man you're about to screw into the bed?"

James' mouth twitched. "Remind me again why I keep falling for snarkers."

"Because we're scorching hot." I got up, took his hand. "C'mon, yellow."

House rapped at the door again, and when James swung it open, the cane hung in mid-air ready for another bang. "Getting cold feet?" House asked.

" _You're_ the one who's two hours late," James pointed out snippily, in response to being sniped at. It was an excellent beginning to a supposed evening of intimacy.

"In fact," I said sweetly, "we were about to call in a substitute." It kept the cruel tone of the starting conversation but added humor; they both bent their heads, appreciating the punch. I had to be careful here, not to step on (any more) toes. They think they're so tough, but you apply the slightest amount of pressure and they start crying worse than abandoned baby seals. If I let their relationship run its natural course, the night would end in jeers, taunts, fights, and someone running off. Kind of like how they'd spent the past ten or so years, come to think of it.

"C'mon," I touched House's wrist on his cane-free hand. Don't think I missed his sudden glance at where I touched him, or James' sharp exhale. "You're letting in all the bugs."

"Forget the _other_ bugs," James said.

Still keeping a light contact on House's wrist, I guided him to the living room. If it'd been up to me, I'd have dived straight in, gotten my whole body wet, figuratively and literally. But it wasn't up to me. I had to follow the mood, and the mood was more appropriate for manly sports competitions than fucking. If I tried to dump them into the deep end of the pool they'd just drown, and I didn't care to put up with weeks of James' moping because we'd blown this chance, or with House's guaranteed bitchy vengeance via prank phone calls. Had to let them get their feet wet before we paddled to deeper waters.

"James," I pecked him on the lips, not because I especially felt like kissing him, but to encourage the other two by way of example. "Get dinner ready." Dinner would be good. Dinner would put hunger away and calm tempers and make everyone pliant. And tonight was an especially good night to be pliant.

"Didn't realize we were up for such a homey, cozy night," House said.

"It's what we have to offer," James said, his voice receding as he went into the kitchen.

House was in his 'Got Credit?' shirt, which had seen better days. By now it was amongst the rattier of the shirts in his already ratty collection, worn and close to ripping along the shoulder. His jeans, too, were beyond 'sad,' heading straight into the land of 'desperate.' His sneakers once had bright highlights; they'd toned down to a depressing grey-orange. "Classy," House remarked to me.

"You're classy too, dressing like you don't give two fucks," I smirked, pulling him down into our larger sofa, the one that can hold more than two people. He obeyed my motion and sat down next to me, but cautiously, eyes tracking my every movement. "Here's the thing: I can smell you. Brushed your teeth? Showered, trimmed, put on aftershave?" We were close. Just a few centimeters more and we would be kissing close. I really could smell his minty-fresh breath and sensitive-man cologne. He tried to look like he could give a flying crap, but his actions screamed otherwise. "You're trying too hard."

It just came out. It surprised me. I'd meant to taunt him, because mockery and jeers and cruel jokes are like inviting House to first, second, third, and home base. But it came out vicious. Got on the wrong track, there.

House's expression remained cool. I guess he wasn't as surprised by the undercurrent of anger in my words as I was. (I hate that he can see me better than I can, sometimes. Hate, hate, hate.) "Acting like you're in charge," he squeezed my hand. It wasn't affectionate. "But here's 'the thing,' 'Amber': this whole plot is desperate. Scared of losing Wilson to outside temptation and pulling all the tricks to keep him with you? How about that for trying too hard." I'd stiffened when he started, and by the time he finished, I might as well have been made of marble.

I've mentioned that I hate him, right? Especially when he's right.

If I didn't tear House apart right then and there, it was because he was there for James. Not me. I'd known all along I'd have to put with the unpleasant side of House along with his even more unpleasant side. And whatever other ugly sides he'd kept hidden from me.

I'd been so focused on House that I hadn't heard James' steps back into the living room. "Are you killing each other already?" James asked, bearing the quiche and his nearly-empty glass of wine. The table was already otherwise set. "Save it at least 'till we've eaten; you don't want to go on a murder spree on empty stomachs."

If I save James' ass on a regular basis, he saves mine even more often. "Okay, but only because you asked." I glanced at House, who shrugged as if to say he could live with the truce. Our hands still entwined, I squeezed his before getting up; it was equal parts challenge, promise, and apology. I think the closest translation would be, pardon my French, 'I fucking hate your guts, but I haven't given up.' ("Very healthy," I could practically hear Rose commenting on the latest addition to my sex life.)

House didn't reject the touch; if anything, his fingers lingered over the back of my hand as I slipped away. (James was watching. I know because I checked. If the moment had lasted any longer, he'd have missed the goblet and spilled the wine he was pouring on to the table.)

"That quiche?" House asked, sniffing. "Real men don't eat quiche. And, what, are you _trying_ to sabotage our threesome by making us sick?" He seemed mildly peeved when James and I broke out into smiles at one another. "What?"

"We knew you'd say it was crappy," James said, full of fondness.

House eyed us suspiciously. "What else you two gossip about?"

"You," James and I both said simultaneously.

"Don't pout," James, clearly amused, told House. "I _know_ you two talk about me when I'm not around."

"Mostly about your sex change," House conceded, walking to the table. " _We_ say the most atrocious things about you," he told me.

"So, basically, we can't stop yapping about one another," I handed House a wine-filled goblet. "No wonder we're sleeping with each other."

He accepted the glass and raised it. "To desperate girlfriends and kinky sex."

"To not being killed in the next hour," James proposed, lifting his.

"To repression," was my toast, and we clinked glasses.

It was almost sweet, in a dysfunctional, hiding-hurts-with-humor kind of way. Though I'd still been fuming at House for hitting my emotional weaknesses smack-dab in the center, with the three of us synching jokes like that, as naturally as opening your eyes, I thought there might be a snowman's chance in hell that this'd work. At least, watching the sides of James' mouth quirk with unstoppable and quiet happiness, I wanted it to.

Dinner went by. We chatted our usual fare, things like amputations and the best in music in the past ten (twenty, for House) years, and the potential uses of human leather. (I know, I know. Our conversations can be weird/ morbid/ not fit for human ears.). I made sure no one's glass wanted for wine; I tried to kept track of how much I poured, but I lost track.

Desert consumed, House got up and stretched his arms, like he was tired of sitting in the same spot (his leg bothering over the forced position?), and went to the main and largest sofa, sitting on one end.

James sat on the opposite side.

Stupid cowards. I sat in the middle, connecting them.

Don't know how much wine we'd drunk by then. A lot, anyway. They were flushed, their eyes shone, and they were so-- languid. At ease. I'm sure I was no better (or no worse). Well-fed and with one of James' arms resting along my shoulders, I leaned against my boyfriend, fitting into the hollow between his chest and armpit.

Though, more than content or fed, I was horny. What? It was flattering, knowing I was about to have sex with two men, even if one of them was there for the other.

House wasn't pressed up against me like I was with James, but I'd never seen him more relaxed, nodding almost imperceptibly in time to John Pizzarelli singing "The Touch of Your Lips. (James had sworn up and down that House would appreciate the CD of classic Jazz songs; I was forced to eat my metaphorical hat.)

Which is why I was surprised when House suddenly mused, voice low: "If we do this, what will we talk about?"

I was curious, but I let James field this one. If I got the first one in, it'd likely end as an argument. Arguments have their time and place in seduction, but this wasn't it. "What do you mean?"

"What we said earlier," House indicated with his chin like he was pointing to a place in the past. "About how we talk about each other. If we're together, how're we going to dig up dirt behind each other's backs?"

"Don't be crazy," James said. "We'll still gossip. You'll ask me-- loudly and in front of as many people as possible-- if Amber is always that noisy, and she'll ask me how you can be even more selfish in bed than out of it. And I'll ask you both how I could be crazy enough to think this was a good idea."

Halfway through the rant, House swallowed more wine; I followed his example. Something about James' sobering words made drinks seem very, very tempting. "That's what I like about you, always looking on the happy, dapper side" House commented.

James' fingers combed through my hair. "Maybe it's better this way," he said. I shivered when, unexpectedly, he nuzzled the back of my head. "Better together than apart." House didn't reply; he only gazed at James thoughtfully.

It made me think. It really was like the three of us were stuck in a vicious circle, each one chasing after the other. Given our fixation, we'd have ended up like this sooner or later. (Later might've been better.)

"Hope so," I said. "Else we're screwed." I felt James' chuckle all around me. I could also see House retracting fractionally, beginning to fold away and into himself. 'Together' was about to become 'falling apart.' With me and James snuggling, House had to be feeling left out.

"Speaking of screwing," I said, pulling out my femme fatale voice (which I can actually do better when I'm drunk), "House. You're always talking about how amazing you are in bed." James hardened, in more ways than one, and House was watching me like he wasn't sure if he was prey or predator. "So. Aren't you gonna show us? Or were you full of shit?" I crossed my legs, flashing a bit more skin.

It was like the air pressure had tripled, the tension got so heavy. House's eyes flickered to James' face again, like he was getting one last bit of reassurance before going for broke. I couldn't see James, not with my back against him, but the answer must've been 'go for it,' since House turned his gaze back to me, sneering suitably to match my banter. "I could show you, but it's not for amateurs."

A challenge. Whatever my feelings for House may be, I do love a challenge. I stretched, my smile not at all feigned. "Try me."

"Again," James asked, "You're not going to kill each other, are you?" His voice was taut. It was a tone I heard almost every night, and at other times, in the intimacy of just the two of us. It was weird to hear that pitch with someone else in the room. Weird. But not wrong. (And that doesn't help make things any clearer. Goddamn it. Goddamn House and his fucking Midas touch for complications. Everything he touches becomes a fucking Rubik's cube.)

"Why not?" House fake-whined.

"Because I'm not into necrophilia," James countered. "And because it'll be hard enough to explain to my family why I have a girlfriend _and_ a boyfriend. I don't want to have to explain to them why they're dead, on top of it all."

"Hey," I said, sitting up, leaning towards House. His eyes are even bluer up close. I hadn't thought they could get any clearer. It was a startling realization, which, when combined with me noticing that the cologne _did_ smell good on him, did me in for a double whammy. It blended in perfectly with the scent of our apartment, of James. It took a moment before I could speak again. "All I've seen so far is more shit."

(I debated how much detail I should give about this part. I wondered if I could leave it at "and then we had lots of sex." But, no. I think to make sense of all this, I have to go over what happened. Because sex is never just sex. There are feelings and power plays and messy emotional entanglements.)

House leaned in so that his breathing, fast, reflected on my mouth. "Pay attention," he said. I'd expected him to close in for a kiss, but it was wrong of me to expect anything predictable from House; instead, his right hand glided over my thigh and his face dove to nuzzle my neck.

Surprised, I fell back into James. With the one I love behind me and one very attentive man kissing the hollow of my neck and massaging me, I was suddenly very, very wet. (Playing proxy has its advantages.) And if James had had a 'growing' interest up until now, it was only getting bigger.

"Not bad," I gasped, giving credit where it was due. House had me squirming with just a hand and a mouth-- though James was doing his part too, breathing in short, shallow breaths, holding me, rubbing circles on my stomach, his hand then gliding down to where thigh meets ass. (No, he wasn't doing much, but he was enjoying the show, and I reveled in that.)

"Just getting started," House murmured, his mouth on my shoulder. Past fucking foreplay-- I've never needed much, a good, hard fucking is what I like-- and needing actual touch and not teasing, I raised my hips. House didn't get the message (yes, he did. Teasing bastard). So I laid my hand on his to get it where it _should_ be (hint: my crotch). But he waved it away.

"Not yet," House scolded, looking into my eyes, then into James'. "Make her behave." James stifled a groan, and then he was pulling my hands up, clasping them over my shoulders.

"Hey!" I protested, waving my bent-elbows. But wouldn't you know it: if I'd been wet before, I was soaking then. (Shut up, power plays turn me on.)

"You know you like it." House's thumb flicked along the hem of my skirt. Fucking tease.

"Yeah," my head was twisting back and forth in a half-hearted struggle (I didn't really want to break free), my legs opening up. "But so not the point-- oh, god, House, you're so _annoying_." I was making a fool of myself, in front of James, already horny over nothing, but I couldn't help myself.

James, absolutely not helping the cause of my diminishing pride, nipped at my ear. I couldn't help moaning. He whispered: "You look amazing." This being proxy sex, he could've just as easily meant House, talking into me like a game of telephone, as if the message would reach him through me. Whoever James meant it for, though, I shuddered.

I squirmed again to at _least_ get my skirt above the top of my knees. "This what you want?" House dragged my hem up, so fucking slowly up.

"Yeah," I groaned when he stopped mid-thigh. "James, forget it, I _am_ gonna kill him."

House was looking down at his handiwork, but now he pierced me with his gaze again. "You should know what you're getting into before you drag everyone into your bright schemes."

"Okay! I get it! I've been a bad girl, trying to get the three of us into bed! Just-- someone, fuck me already!" James' cock twitched at that, and I think he would've obliged, but House shook his head.

"Too soon." Then, finally, House's right hand hovered over the top of my crotch. I made some noise of relief, my hips jerking upwards automatically. "You want this?" House asked.

"I fucking want you to stop being a fucking pussy tease," I growled. If James' hold on my wrists hadn't been so strong, I'd have broken away by then and fucked him (James), or fingered myself into coming, or _something_. This wasn't funny or sexy anymore, it was infuriating.

And still House did no more than thumb me over my skirt, at the spot where my public hairs start. I threw my head back, whimpered louder than I had that night so far, despite myself.

"House," James said. He'd been growing harder and harder, but he wasn't losing himself like I was. Then again, _he_ hadn't spent the past ten minutes being tantalizingly fondled. (Most guys would kill to have such an easily pleased partner. Seriously.) "C'mon."

"Okay," House said amenably. His hand skipped from my mound to between my legs (still over my skirt). "Now, I've heard something about a legendary 'clit.'" His fingers found my vagina and he pressed against its entrance. "Is it here?"

My hips buckled, fucking his fingers, or at least trying to, because I was close, _so_ close, and if I could get his thumb to hit me in just the right place-- "Try higher, jackass."

"Here?" He rubbed just above the opening to my vagina. "Maybe here?" The third time marked the spot, and it didn't take much. Two flicks of his thumb and I came, crying out and shuddering from head to toe. I barely even registered that House had just used the sure-fire strokes that make me come.

The next thing I knew, James was kissing the side of my mouth passionately, hugging me, his dick hot against my crotch. (When had I turned around?) House was right next to us, smug, and no wonder. I was still panting, my hair was a mess, my clothes were disarrayed, my underwear was wetter than a water park-- and the (slight) bulge in his pants aside, he looked like he hadn't been through more than a stroll. "Was it good for you, too?" He asked cheerfully.

I wanted to punch him. "You're so dead." I turned to James. "And so are you."

"You loved it!" James protested.

"No, not that. You told him, didn't you."

If it was possible, James flushed redder. "I was drunk."

"Can't believe you told him how to make me come," I muttered. "And I bet that was _before_ I suggested the threesome." James hadn't gotten drunk with House once since the night I'd decided on it, and anyway, he'd have been too mortified since then to discuss sex, much less my personal preferences, with House.

What else had James told House?

"You're hardly the first female to need a thumb there," House flicked his middle finger against his thumb. "Would've done that anyway."

"Whatever." I ran a hand through my hair to get it mostly back in place. "Your performance just lost points: you cheated with insider info."

"Takes more than insider info," House said.

"Bet I can do fine without it." I did have quite a few ideas to try out. But before I could get closer to him to start, House suddenly stood up and snaked a vial from his back pocket, popping out a pill.

"If I have to crouch on that thing anymore, I'm gonna end up in a wheelchair."

James nudged me up and stood up as well. "Bedroom," he said.

That soothed my pride. If House wasn't harder, it was because of the pain.

James gave me his hand, and I felt better with its familiar weight and shape around mine. Venturing off into the unknown is titillating and all, but it's good to have an old companion with you on the journey.

"Maybe if we get to a bed," James said, "we can get past the boasting. I can't believe you came before any of us got undressed." I made a face at having my 'loss' referred to in that way. "You looked amazing, though."

James smiled, glowing, and that made me remember how much I love him, so I kissed him. _I'd_ just come, so I went for slow, but James, still hard and probably aching, went for open-mouth and crushing. Well. I let him set the pace, I'm never going to argue against more fucking.

"Bedroom!" House reminded us, irritated, probably more at being left out again than at our location.

"We heard you," I said and, not letting go of James' hand, I pulled House in, kissing him. So strange, having the spit of one man in your mouth, then tasting the other right in front of him; turning him on with the sight. They tasted about the same: wine, quiche, chocolate mousse (I probably tasted just like them). Not bad. Not bad at all. (Have to be honest.)

House's eyes widened when I first approached and, when I made contact, he stilled.(His panic reflex seems more appropriate for wild animals!) But I insisted, gently pressing against his lips, and maybe because the world didn't end, he pressed back. (His lips are thinner than James'; his fuzz cuts into my skin more.) He ran the tip of his tongue lightly against my lower lip.

I-- I did want more. That's the best result for a first kiss. At least, it should be.

I found House's right hand, and, holding them both in either hand, kissed James. (It's fun to mess with their heads.) Done, I smirked at one and then the other. "Let's go."

"Wilson," House said, his voice taut. "Your girlfriend is a slut."

"I'm noticing." James' voice was equally strained, but despite their words, they followed me like obedient little lambs. House even left his cane behind, to my surprise; I'd never expected him to feel that comfortable around me.

I led them to the bedroom, shades down, lamps on, fresh bed sheets. (I 'd prepared everything. Lube and condoms, too, were already waiting on the top of the bed stand, 'cause safe sex and wine aren't an automatic match. Yes, I really am the best girlfriend in the world.)

When I let them go and turned around, I found them both staring at _me_. Standing right next to each other, they might as well have been miles apart. I'd have sighed, but-- playing the commander really just made me hornier.

I smirked at the both of them, then kissed James, prompting him to take off his shirt. While he pulled that over his head, I kissed House, unbuckling and sliding his belt off. We got caught up in the kiss, my tongue against his in his mouth, and James watched, his breath hitching. "What're you waiting for?" I asked, a bit breathless myself. My hands hooked on House's jeans' belt loops, James leaned in, cupping my face, and kissed me.

I kept the three of us together, and by the time we were down to our underwear, I was pressed between James and House, and the two of them, their faces were just centimeters from each other. Even as James cupped my breasts, or House bit my ear, they kept glancing at each other, like kids staring at a store display of chocolates.

Go on, I urged them inside my mind. Go on.

They went. They found their way around me, House still hovering around my ear, and James tracing my cheeks with his lips. They met somewhere in the middle, and I felt the warmth of their cheeks over my own as they locked lips, open-mouthed from the very first.

It'd taken them almost ten years to get there, but once they did, they wasted no time.

James' hand, which hand been about to work my bra strap, flew to the nape of House's neck, and he clung there; I slipped out from between them, to avoid getting crushed, and I don't think either one missed me. James' other hand following to clutch the small of House's back. House went for a more straightforward route, wrapping his arms around James' torso, and they went at it, devouring each other.

It was like they'd been dry wood waiting for a lit match to set them aflame.

I was that match.

(If I close my eyes, I can see every detail. How James' hands curled around the base of House's head; the sharp bite House gave on James' chin, the one that made James moan like he'd just seen a ray of sunlight after a year of dark winter. I try not to remember.)

They almost missed the bed as they fell, kissing and pawing. James was caught beneath House and didn't seem to mind one bit. On the contrary. (I couldn't believe the sounds-- it wasn't anything I hadn't heard from James before, but not all at once like that, or _before_ either of us was in the other. It was-- is-- hot, yes, and I wanted more than anything-- again-- to be fucking, but.)

It was all grunts at first, with me staring wide eyed and twitching with new-found horniness from the sidelines, but House brought words back into what had become animal communication. "Want me to fuck you like last time?" He growled.

I barely made out the words, but I did, and my heart jolted.

"Yes, oh god, yes--" James confirmed.

"Wait a second," I blurted. "You said _hand jobs_." I remembered well James' explanation of when he'd been "with" House, and not once had he mentioned fucking. "Just hand jobs," he'd said. I wouldn't have forgotten something like that.

James' eyes flickered towards me, mildly abashed. "It was just the once."

"Twice, really," and I could hear the delight in House's voice to be revealing this tasty morsel of gossip. "He was really into it, too." House thrust his hip, as if to press his point, and it worked. James bit his lip and held back a cry.

James hadn't just been lying by omission. He lied. To _me_. ("Everybody lies" is the doctrine. Would "to everyone" be the corollary?) And there'd been more than just lying. James had House things he had no business knowing, like what gets me going in bed, and who knows what else.

What else was, is, James hiding?

I wanted to make a big deal out of it. I wanted to kick House off James and out of my home, and stay up all night talking to my boyfriend. I wanted to straighten everything out.

But James was quivering with want, and he was seconds, minutes, from getting what I'd worked so hard to present him with. The thing he'd wanted for years. One white lie or two didn't mean the cracking of the foundation of our relationship, I figured. And aborting midway might cause more damage than I prevented.

"You're not off the hook," I told James sternly. "We're dealing with this later."

Relief flashed through James' face, but it didn't last long. House thrust into him again and James fell back, lips parted and eyes squeezing shut. "Hornballs," I muttered, and tossed them a condom and the lube. The way they were going at it, drunken and haphazard, they'd start fucking bareback, and no way was I going to get whatever House has via James.

They fucked. James on his hands and knees near the rim of the bed and looking like he'd blissed out on drugs, and House on his feet (it's not the only position he's capable of, but it's the easiest for him). They fucked hard and fast and even when James and I do it rough, we don't do it like that, like bruises are pleasurable.

I stood watching, arms crossed and in my underwear, feeling more discarded than the condom wrapper that'd been ripped in half and flung carelessly away. (It'd flittered down beside them, and later I'd throw it out myself.) James looked like he was on the verge of coming-- and passing out-- and, wet and lonely, I suddenly didn't want him coming _that_ way. (I was still tipsy, of course my feelings lashed out unreasonably.)

House himself was pretty far gone, eyes closed and banging out a quick rhythm. It was easier than tapping out a knee jerk reaction on a patient, to slip behind him and quickly insert two (lubricated) fingers into his ass.

It's amazing how efficient that move is. Before he could ask what the hell I was doing, he was coming, his strokes breaking out into erratic jolts. (James cried out, but didn't come.) "Just returning the favor for making me come earlier," I told him, sweet as cranberry pie.

"You-- you--" House panted, breathing still distorted from his orgasm. "You play dirty."

"I sure do."

James was moving back against House, but it's hard to ride a limp dick. (I know because I've tried. Then again, who hasn't?) He had to give up, though, especially since House pulled out and flopped onto the bed.

"C'mon, soldier," I ran a hand down James' back. "I want you." He turned over and smiled at me. I smiled back, ruffling my hand over his hair; the tips of his strands were wet with sweat, and his face shone with a light sheen. I did-- do-- so love him. I kissed his face all over, as if I could reclaim him that way.

"Amber," James whined.

"Now who's impatient?" I asked, but I sat up so that I could slide onto him, and he sighed deeply even as he entered me. The pleasure rippling through me only increased as James fingered my clit, stroking me quickly but not too hard, exactly as he knew I like it.

I rode him hard, both because I was on the edge and because we had an audience. House's gaze (which I checked many, many times) flicked from my breasts to where our crotches were joined. James and I looked good, I knew. I'd have been jealous, if I were the one watching.

House suddenly sat up, squeezing one of my butt cheeks. "House--" I warned, but James' gasp confirmed that he _loved_ the idea of House fondling (manhandling) me some more. So I didn't stop House from tickling my stomach, from mouthing my breast, and wouldn't you fucking know it, it was his teeth on my nipple that made me come.

I couldn't even have direct sex with James in peace, with House around.

I came harder than I had since forever, the waves crashing all around and inside me. (Why does the worst sex have to be the best sex?) James helped me ride it out longer, coming at the tail end of my orgasm, me shuddering out every last ripple.

"Oh, wow," James said. His pupils were huge. "Amber, House--"

(He said my name first. I remember that very clearly. But maybe it was only because his dick was still in me and I was in his direct line of sight.)

I rolled off James and we hugged, my head nestled between his neck and his shoulder. Focused on his warmth, my love for him, I only vaguely heard House getting out of bed and the rattle of pills.

When House came back into the bed, James turned to him, like he'd wanted to make out with him too, in the afterglow. But House fell asleep immediately, and so James turned back to me. I certainly didn't mind; it meant I got to snuggle James more.

I zonked out soon enough, my head nestled on James' chest and my legs entangled in his.

I later woke up at who-knows-what-hour, startled by a sound. It was night-dark, James snored softly besides me, his legs still entwined around me, and my brain might as well have been made of cotton candy. Make that cotton candy denser than iron; I felt like I was carrying a ton inside my head. (Why do we drink when it feels so awful afterwards?)

At first I wasn't sure why I'd woken up. Hell, I barely remembered who I was, much less where I was, what I'd just done, and who I'd done it with. Hello, disorientation! But then I heard rustling and a light step or two.

Pulling my arms and legs back to myself carefully so as to not wake James up, even if he was totally lights-out asleep, I sat up. I was on one edge of the bed, James was smack in the middle, and no one was on the other side. Two where there should be three.

I squinted. My eyes had adjusted just enough to make out something tall moving, accompanying the steps. And then came the unmistakable sound of a zipper.

Oh no he didn't.

(How to avoid this kind of mess-up was _exactly_ the kind of advice I'd wanted from Rose.)

"House," I said softly. The zipping stopped. I could see House more clearly now, a hunched figure in the darkness. My imagination could fill in the blanks: waking up in a strange bed next to one very familiar body and another somewhat-known one. Cue panic or second-guessing or fear by any other name and you've got middle-of-the-night fleeing.

I could also imagine James' reaction to finding House vanished: his shame, his regret, and all the sarcasm he'd need to cover his dignity. I had no idea why they stopped whatever they had going all those years ago, but I wasn't going to let them do it again. I wouldn't let James get hurt. "If you don't get your fucking ass here right this minute, I will tear you limb from limb and mail the pieces to nurse Brenda so that she and the rest of the hospital can burn what's left of you."

You'd be surprised at how much threat a calmly-stated whisper can hold.

A second passed, and then House sighed. "Does Wilson know you're satanic?"

"Yes, and it turns him on. Get back in bed." There was the zipping again, but it was followed by the sound of cloth hitting ground. (Good thing too, as our kitchen cleaver hadn't been sharpened in over a month. It'd make hacking tricky.) When House's weight sank down on the opposite side of the bed, I let myself fall back asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

When I next woke up, early-morning light was pouring in through our curtains.

House, in the same shirt and boxers as he'd come here with, snored and drooled somewhat in the middle of the bed. He'd kicked off the covers, but his boxers covered his scar. Not like I wanted to look at it, anyway.

James was nowhere in sight, but I heard things coming from the kitchen.

I was still buck-naked. I glanced at House's shirt wistfully; I _so_ wished he hadn't put it back on, it would've totally fucked with his head (and James'! Don't knock it, messing with James is one of my favorite hobbies) if I paraded around in it. Alas.

I quietly (no reason to wake up the monster) dug out new panties from the drawer and one of James' oversized grey-shirts, long enough to cover my ass. It wouldn't fuck with House's head-- hardly the first time he'd catch me in James' clothes-- but it'd definitely bug him. (It also, as I didn't let myself admit, served to mark my territory. My man, rowr.)

I padded barefoot to the kitchen where James was singing under his breath ("Raise a Little Hell" by Trooper) and pouring milk into a large, red plastic bowl. Breakfast would be hand-made and delicious.

I leaned against the doorway, just watching, heart softening to see him bustle about so energetically. When was the last time I'd seen him this way, as if just being alive were a thrill a second? I couldn't remember. It was worth it, I decided then. All of it. What had happened, whatever happened next, it was worth it. (I still think that. I think.)

When James finally noticed me, he beamed. (My heart soared. I was a part of his joy.) "Amber!"

"The early worm cooks the early panca--" my joke was cut off by a kiss, and that's fine, because his lips against mine are much better than any play on cliché sayings. It wasn't a hello-glad-to-see-you peck, it was a god-I-need-you-right-now kiss.

Well, I'm easy. I gave as good as I got, and sighed when he pulled away. James held my face between his hands, studying me. "You're beautiful. Did you know that?" He led a finger down my cheek, his touch light. "And I got batter all over your hair."

I laughed, and spread my fingers across the top of his chin, transferring the flour stuck there to the tip of his nose. "Now we're even. And it's not like we don't need to shower."

His gaze intensified, and that alone made me twinge inside with want. I _liked_ this passionate, sex-driven James. "Then let's make that shower worth it." A few more kisses, caresses, awkward steps, and we were up against a wall. His leg snaked between my legs, and I don't know why those two had become so fond of making me come by digital manipulation (conspiracy theory: it leaves them hard for _other_ things, that is, people), but I wasn't about to complain. I threw my head back, letting the jolts run through me, and just when I was near a peak--

"Knew there'd be a third wheel," House grumbled from the kitchen entrance. "Just didn't know who."

"Whine, whine, whine," James shot back. Me, I wanted to join in on the whining; he'd stopped at a _very_ inconvenient moment.

House shrugged. "They say the squeaky wheel gets the grease."

"Then come get your grease," James smirked.

"Oh, god, do you two _hear_ yourselves?" I asked, exasperated.

House sauntered over to us and-- let's just say that it took us a long, long time to fry up those pancakes. And, no, I'm not going into more explicit detail about that. I've said enough to give an idea of how it was, that first time. This is supposed to be contemplation, not pornography.

Sexed, showered, fed, it was time to step out of fantasy (whose?) and back into practical matters. "You could borrow something," James offered. "I'm sure I have something ragged and old enough to match your style."

James and I stood before the closet mirror, getting dressed for another work day. House, back in the shirt and jeans he came in yesterday, watched us from the bed. He'd picked his back up cane after breakfast and twirled it, drawing large circles in the air.

"Or we could drive by your place," I said. "And you could get a change of clothes." I wouldn't want to be walking around in the same underwear for two days, gross.

"Pfft," House scoffed. "Change and miss out on feeding the gossip mill? Never!"

"Ah, of course, we couldn't miss such a golden opportunity." I saw James rolling his eyes in the mirror as he knotted his tie.

"It's House," I said. "You should've known that scandal would be part and parcel and don't think I don't know that you're about to 'accidentally' hit me with that thing, House."

"Spoil-sport," House mouthed at James, but pulled the cane back so that it was less likely to whack either one of us.

I dropped them off at PPTH, half-glad I didn't work there anymore. I wouldn't have to put up with the speculation, though I think it might've been fun, in a way. "House cries when he comes," I could've told people. Actually, I still can, come to think of it! Awesome.

But, yeah, gossip is just jealousy, and hey, if others are jealous of you, then you're doing something right, aren't you? But if you're the jealous one? Does that mean you're the one fucking it all up?

James called me a few hours later: "Hey."

"Hi, love," I said. I was alone in my office, studying x-rays up on the lightbox. I was on the lookout for tumors or swellings or anything else the patient would want to know about.

I debated bringing up the lies, the omissions of truth, and what other secrets James might have hidden up his sleeve. But that was a conversation I'd rather have when we were in the same room, so that we could wrangle and curse and make-up in person. Fights are so much better that way. "What's up?"

And it's a good thing I didn't raise the issue, because what he wanted to discuss was pretty revealing. I bet he'd have hidden it if he'd had two seconds to think it through. "Oh, god, Amber--" his anxious voice filled my ear.

"What, is the gossip that bad?" I teased. "Go ahead and make them worse, tell them about House's teddy bear fetish. They'll eat it up, and it's not like he doesn't deserve it."

"What? No--" Oh, it was something more serious. I turned away from the scans and, one hand beneath my armpit and my head bent, I waited for him to get his words together. I wondered if he was having a delayed shock reaction, or if he was suddenly regretting the whole thing. Maybe House had given him reason to regret it, mocking James to make himself feel better about what we'd done, or...

"I bet this'll sound even dumber out loud than in my head, but Amber, I really want to kiss him."

I pulled my hand up from my armpit to my forehead. "Then kiss him. Or is there a problem, like he's suddenly lost his lips?"

"Ew," he said, but the grossness of the mental image of a lipless House didn't seem to deter his want. "You're not here," he said this as if it were an explanation.

"I'm rolling my eyes at you," I told him, though I wasn't really, just in spirit. "I didn't expect to be present for all your touchy-feely moments. In fact, I _don't_ want to be. Go kiss him, you have my leave."

"Amber--"

"Look at it this way," I said, starting to pace around my office. "If you can't do him without me around, then that'd mean I can't do _you_ without him around and, no, that's not how it's going to be." It also meant I could only do House with James present, but it's not like that was a problem. Sexing House with James is more than enough for me. "Stop being a pussy and go make out with him."

The phone crackled as his breath of relief hit the receiver. "Thanks, Amber."

"Just remember: I'm the world's best girlfriend." My pacing brought me back to the x-rays, and I stared at them, standing tall and rigid.

"You sure are," he told me, warmly, I think. It could've been because of his happiness about how he was about to kiss and who knows what else with House and not because of me. "Love you, Amber."

"Love you too, James," I replied, hung up, and promptly smacked two of the x-rays off the lightbox. I stared as the now-bent x-rays fluttered towards the ground; I hadn't even suspected I'd do that. Perfectly good, and expensive, x-rays ruined.

So I wasn't in the best mood when the phone rang. "Amber?" It was my sister.

"What, Rose," I snapped. (Taking my anger out on the wrong person.)

She didn't say anything at first, and then: "You were right, Amber."

Having your rightness acknowledged can knock more wind out of you than being told you're wrong. If you don't have a soap box to stand on anymore, where do you go? I leaned against the front of my desk, gripping the edge. "I'm right all the time," I said. "Which right are you referring to?"

"I did," she said, and before I could point out that this made no sense without context, "You were right. I was in an open-ended relationship, in high school. It didn't end well."

"Bit too late to tell me that," I said under my breath. I guess she didn't hear that, because she didn't reply. Louder, I asked, "What happened?" Just like Pandora tipping the box over to get a better peek inside, I swear. I knew the contents would be ugly but I had to see just _how_ ugly.

"What do you think happened?" she asked sharply.

"Well, I don't know. Maybe two horny teenage boys were too much of a pain in the ass--"

"Teenage boy and girl," she corrected, her tone sadder.

"Oh," flew out of my mouth automatically, and, "Rose, I didn't know you had it in you!" and, "It wasn't Natalyn, was it?" Natalyn had been this friend of Rose's, black hair always in this sweeping ponytail that looked like it'd _hurt_ if it smacked you in the face. She came over to our house only a couple of times, but I saw them together all the time at school. They stayed close, talking softly, heads bent towards one another. I'd always just assumed they were gossiping. "That's wild."

"Very wild," Rose said dryly.

"How did it happen? I mean, why?" This was a brand-new opportunity, poking at the scandals of strait-laced and American Mom Myth Perfect Rose. Normally I only get to mock her boring life!

"It wasn't like what _you're_ up to," she said, and god, it's a talent she has, turning everything into a rebuke. "We liked each other, that's all. And we thought it made more sense to be together than apart."

"Sure," I crossed my legs. "Sounds perfectly utopian. Better than sleeping with an asshole because your boyfriend's taste in men sucks." Not that, me aside, James' taste in women is any better. I don't know which would be worse, adding House or Bonnie to our bed.

"You mean you've already--" Rose hesitated with the wording. "Tried it out?"

"Test run was yesterday. Nothing blew up and no one died, except figuratively or in French." I didn't mention how James probably had his tongue down House's throat (or somewhere more obscene) at that very moment. Rose didn't need to know about that.

"Oh, Amber," she sighed.

"What?" I asked, annoyed.

"Just-- I knew I should've told you sooner."

"I _did_ ask you to."

"This is hard for me, okay? I haven't really talked about it since. Even Otto barely knows about it, and only because we promised to tell each other everything."

"That policy works great, doesn't it," I said, only mildly bitter. "So what happened? Natalyn graduated, and I didn't hear of anyone in our school dying, so the boy must've survived, too."

"Don't be so dramatic, of course no one died! I-- I got jealous. It was okay, in the beginning, when it was new and different, but-- I started to feel left out. Like I was an extra tacked on. Maybe I was, I don't know. But that's how I felt. And every time Nat was more affectionate with Geoffrey than with me, or she told him something first-- I turned into this jealous bitch, Amber. I was angry at everything."

There was this time, during and a month after her junior spring break, when it seemed like she was constantly PMSing. She yelled at me for five minutes for opening the fridge the wrong way, slammed doors shut in my face, spent entire days in her room with music as loud as mom would let her. The break-up must've been around then. Rose continued, "Eventually I couldn't take it anymore. I told her she had to choose, and she chose him."

"I'm sorry, Rose." I was. It sucks to be rejected.

"Yeah, me too." She exhaled. "I didn't have another serious relationship until I met Otto, he's the most trustworthy man I ever met."

"Boring, too," I said, stepping into the old argument like an old pair of shoes. "So you went with the opposite extreme, taking the predictable, safe path of a loving and devoted housewife?" Yes, that was unnecessary. And, yes, I was reacting against the thought of being similarly burned. I was doing the mature thing and taking it out on the messenger, even if the message wasn't about _me_.

"See, this is why it took me so long to tell you, I knew you'd blow me off!"

"Just being honest. And, look, I appreciate you warning me and all, but I'm not going to screw this up. The whole point of this is to keep James from having to chose, and now he doesn't have to. It's gonna be great."

"Seems I didn't need to bother," Rose said coldly.

"Yeah. Go back to your brood." I hung up. Overcompensating much? Hell yeah. (Oh, god, what if _I_ have to tell Rose she was right? I hate humble pie. I don't know if I could get halfway through her 'I told you so' without hanging up.)

I took a deep breath, shook my head, and organized the (bent) x-rays to get sent back with my observations. I wasn't going to let Rose's Fate o' Woe bother me. I _refused_ to let it worry me. My case was entirely different and therefore my future was going to be hunky-dory.

You can imagine my joy at the message James sent me a couple of hours later: "House joining us tonight, love, James."

Love. Goddamn love. But I wasn't going to let it get to me. I wasn't. (I did.) One moment it's "wah, may I pretty please peck House chastely?" and the next it's open-season on invitations into our bed! I mean, okay. I'm glad James feels comfortable enough with me to do as he wants (and he's come such a long way in that regard, and I'm so proud of him), but it's my home, too! At least ask me first if it's okay!

When I complained to James about this, he apologized and promised to never do it again. Of course, House found out-- and I can imagine how, James saying, "Let me check with Amber if you can come over," and House snerking-- and made fun of me the rest of that night. "May I go to the bathroom, Amber?" "Amber, may I turn my head around?" "Amber, may I please have your permission to blow Wilson?"

Half the time I told House 'no' for the hell of it. He did what he wanted, regardless of my answer. Including invite himself over. A dozen times, now, I've heard two pairs of feet walking up the entrance and James' wary explanation upon coming in, "He insisted on tagging along." It's pointless for me to get angry if it's House the one that's imposing himself, but then again, it's kind of James' fault, too, for _letting_ House walk all over him, and, by extension, me.

So, yeah, House came over the night after our first time together as a threesome. And the night after that. And-- take a wild guess-- the night after that. And what can I say about them? They weren't identical to our first time, but they were similar enough. Sex, even with three people instead of two, doesn't change that much. It's a variation on the lather, rinse, repeat theme: foreplay, come, repeat. You've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times, and I really don't feel like going over it.

* * *

With House over constantly and our conflicting work schedules, it was almost a week before I got James alone long enough to confront him about his recent, and possibly other still-unrevealed, distortions of truth.

Sunday afternoon, James dropped House back at his place. He came back relatively quiet, in that tired-after-fun-exciting-times way, and with a copy of the Washington Post, his weekend treat. "I'm back," he pecked my cheek, and went to the kitchen. "I'm going to make tea, want some?"

"No," I replied. (Tea in the summer is one of his quirks, not mine.) I half-wanted to leave it at that, and let James get his rest. But I was tired of waiting. Tired of wondering what, if any, meaning there was in the lies, in passing on private information about me to House. Tired of holding a fight bottled up inside me, of waiting for the right moment, especially since there'd never _be_ a right moment. Most of all, I was tired of being irritated at James.

So screw his peaceful time off, we had issues to settle.

"Why didn't you tell me about getting fucked up the ass?" I asked James, when he turned on the burner beneath a kettle filled with water. He looked so surprised at the sudden affront, like I'd just interrupted a family picnic with a shot!

"What?" Of course he hadn't seen it coming; he can't read my mind and he'd been too wrapped up in having all of his horny fantasies coming true. But James is a smart boy, and he quickly remembered. "Oh. That." He winced, with guilt, I assume. Or embarrassment. Those two feelings go hand-in-hand, especially with James.

"You told me it was just you giving him hand jobs, after the infarction." I crossed my arms.

"Does it matter?" He rubbed the back of his neck.

"I don't know. Does it? I wouldn't think so, except that you set your pants on fire and lie about it."

The kettle whistled and he turned off the burner; poured the water into a mug with black tea leaves in it. "I'm sorry, I was-- worried. Embarrassed."

" _That_ I can believe."

"You know me," a split-second grin flashed on his face, but it didn't overtake his awkwardness. "You were so set on the thing with House, and I didn't-- I didn't want to give you any ideas."

"You mean you didn't want to admit to liking gay sex," I deadpanned.

Again he winced. "That's one way of putting it."

"Like I would've given two flying pink elephants about that."

"I never said it made sense," James offered. "And since you did end up getting your way _and_ got me gay sex, trying to hide it was even more pointless. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have lied to you." He was sincere and humble, in that way he's so good at. Because he really _is_ sincere and humble; they're just some of the things I love about him.

I glanced away, still not quite satisfied. I'd still been slighted, but what can you do? An apology is about the most you can get out of someone who did you wrong. If they could go back and change things so that the offense never happened, that'd be one thing, but that's not possible, so the only thing you can really do is take the apology and live out the consequences.

"Okay," I said, running my fingers through my hair. (What more did I want, besides the apology?) "How about telling House what gets me off?"

James looked _so_ horrified, like he'd run over someone's grandmother. "God, Amber--" He put his mug onto the counter and waved his hands liked he'd wanted to reach out to me, but didn't dare. "I was drunk, I wasn't thinking. I never should've--"

It was enough to understand what, exactly, had happened. "Guy talk! Showing off!" I could see the two of them in one of those half-seedy bars they (yes, 'they,' even if James won't admit to it) love. One beer too many, one gets started on recounting past bed-time glories, and they go on a roll.

James grimaced painfully. "More like I couldn't stop talking about you."

The scene in my head changed. Suddenly, it wasn't the two of them drunk, just James, happy and affectionate and loose-tongued, going on about one of his two favorite subjects, me (the other favorite subject is too obvious to try to make anyone guess at it). I could see House scowling at being subjected to hearing about anyone but himself, especially if it was to be regaled with how much his best friend loved someone _else_. "...Did House tell you to shut up?"

"Before I got to that part, yeah, he begged me repeatedly to shut up about you already." He hung his head. What could I do? I saw his remorse, and it was enough for me. He hadn't meant it. Of course, he'd done it precisely because he is who he is, and his feeling sorry wouldn't change that part of him, but I wasn't in this relationship to change him.

I hugged him, because I wanted to, and because his hand-flailing was so pathetic it made me feel bad for him. "I won't do it again," he promised, chin on the top of my head.

"What, get drunk?" I asked. "Hah!"

"Point," he conceded.

We spent the rest of the Sunday low-key, reading together. At dinner I bitched about work (bad weeks only made the job in Arizona sound all the more tempting), and James told me about the consult he'd given the previous day (with a little _too_ much detail, like just how wart-covered his patient was. Then again, he does always tell me everything). We went to bed that night without having sex; we both needed a break.

And that was that. James admitted he was wrong, he was sorry, and things were exactly the same as they were before. We are who we are, and if someone betrays your trust once, why wouldn't they do it again? ("People never change," House gloats all the time. I don't agree, but, yeah, they almost never do.)

Lies and spilling your secrets to someone else aren't the only the tools of betrayal; there are a thousand and one ways to violate that confidence. (When did I start talking like a self-help guide to relationships?!) And I didn't mean to be on the look-out for them, writing mental lists of all the ways James started to disappoint me, but I couldn't help it. Once I started, I couldn't stop, and everything became a personal insult. Stupid sensitivity.

Like when they go out for drinks. I started to feel left out, and made a point of joining them, to stop from becoming a stick-in-the-mud. But it was no good. I just got bored, sitting at the counter unable to hear most of their conversation over the music, and when I did, it was full of with in-jokes, casual references to a shared work life I have no part in. And they didn't like it either, because they had to censor themselves (couldn't talk about me or rank the women around according to various demeaning classifications).

None of that is new. House used to drag James to bars before he started to sleep with us. But that's the key word, isn't it, 'before.' Before I didn't share James in the bed; he used to be mine, mine, mine, get your grubby mitts off. I got to have James in ways and times House never could. I never thought it'd matter, never thought I'd get possessive this way. I hate it. I hate the jealousy, I hate feeling _stupid_ because of the jealousy.

* * *

I was reading in my room reading (getting away from House's endless rant-like monologues) when I heard the yelling. I was actually impressed; it was our first fight since we'd gotten together. Our honeymoon phase had lasted three weeks! I'd thought that with House, it wouldn't go on for more than ten minutes.

"You had no _right_ ," James shouted. "That was _my_ patient--"

"Yeah, who was taking the red-eye flight straight to hell--"

"Oh, so now you're an expert in oncology, are you?"

"Anyone who read the wikipedia entry on oncology would know better than you!"

I love a good fight, but I let them duke it on their own. I had no idea what they were arguing about (but if it was work-related, why did it start here, and not the hospital? Did House spill the beans at the wrong time?). And, more to the point, squeezing through a wall would be easier than getting between their fights. (I'd have compared it to two people having sex, but I've already been able to stick myself in the middle of their fucking; their fights, no.)

They went on in this vein, pulling out old scars ("One word: Grace," and, "I've helped more than three times as many patients as you!") until House slammed the front door shut, leaving. Silence followed.

I bounced out of the bed to the living room, where James was picking up the litter of empty beer cans on the table and the floor. His face was hard, eyebrows furrowed. "What happened?" I asked, eager to not be left out anymore. If I knew, I might be able to lay the smack down on House the next time I saw him.

"Nothing."

Nothing. He couldn't have pushed me further away than if he'd said 'fuck you.'

When we'd first started dating, James used to tell me _every_ thing, and I do mean everything. About how sesame-seeds stuck in his teeth. His random thoughts about why the noir film genre died out. Memories of packing his own paper-bag lunch in the second-grade. He'd call me every ten, thirty minutes, just to pass the latest on to me. "Foreman did the dialysis behind House's back!" "Cuddy got another $15,000 in donations to the pediatrics ward!" Every little thing that ran through James' head or that happened to him, he passed on to me.

Now he doesn't want to tell me about the big things. Who knows why. May he thinks I'm too involved in his life, now. Maybe he thinks it doesn't matter anymore, because I can be taken for granted. After all, if I let him sleep with House, what _wouldn't_ I do? Or he's losing interest in me.

"Uh-huh," I replied. "The yelling match and the slammed door, that's one big nothing." But my sarcasm didn't lessen the scowl on his face. Getting anything out of him would be like prying out a scepter carved into the same stone as a gargoyle. I went back to our bedroom, in the hopes that once he'd sulked he wouldn't be so closed off.

Not five minutes later, the front door slammed shut again; it was James' turn to make a speedy exit. Without even a word to me. Not, "I need a walk," or "I'm going after that stupid, stupid, idiot." Just 'bam.'

Is it stupid how left out I felt? I wasn't important enough to be included in the argument and I couldn't help him with the aftermath. I was there to be ignored.

I didn't call James. For one thing, I could read the signs ('stay out of it'). For another, James had left his cell phone on the table, the one where all the beer cans had been. At least he'd cleaned up after himself.

They both came back hours later, much drunker, much hornier. I didn't watch their angry, make-up sex on the hallway floor. It'd have made me feel ill, watching them wrestle each other for the upper hand. (Judging from the sounds, James lost the power play. And loved every second of it.) I love angry sex as much as I love fights, and even if I _was_ pissed off at the time, I wasn't horny. More importantly, I wasn't a part of the making up.

That's what my place in my own personal space had been reduced to: me in my room reading and listening to my iPod, waiting for them to get over their childish fight. House was, is, bringing his dysfunctions into my home. He was spreading them to me.

After House had left, on better terms, I cornered James. (I waited because my argument was with James, not House. I don't expect anything decent from House, but I'd like my boyfriend to treat me right.) "What was _that_ about?" I demanded.

The fight out of his system, James was pretty willing to explain. "It really was nothing--" House had snooped through one of James' patient's files and decided to change the medication they were receiving in the hospital. James found out and was furious he hadn't been consulted first, but since House's hunch had been correct, James let him get away with it. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you before."

It was the second time he'd had to apologize since we started to sleep with House; it was starting to feel like a regular occurrence. "Don't do it again," I told him, but I knew better than to think he wouldn't. Just as I can't expect James to protect all of my secrets in the future, there's no way he couldn't not fight with House again. House _is_ a fight waiting to happen. And the same thing would happen, all over again.

And, indeed, they're always getting into arguments, big and small. Sometimes James vents at me about them, sometimes not. I never take part in the resulting sex, though I get to find the signs of it all over my boyfriend afterwards: teeth marks on the back of James' neck ("is he a _cat_?"), scratches, bruises-- it's not always violent between them. But it often is.

"He has problems," I said while applying thimerosal on a scratch that had bled over James' scapula.

"He does," James agreed.

"So do you!" I admonished, whapping him lightly over his spine.

House wasn't over that night, but James and I didn't have sex. I don't like to look at James when he's so freshly covered with the signs of House's territoriality. And you can be sure it's his territoriality that's responsible; it's his equivalent of a dog peeing on a post. (Thankfully, neither one is into golden showers, so there's no actual peeing on each other going on.) It isn't House's petty jealousy that bothers me; it's that James _lets_ him do it.

The marks on James aren't the only traces House has left behind. With each passing day, I've been finding more of his things in my home. At first, a toothbrush (taken from our unused stash) and a rarely-used razor. Those were more than okay. I want him to have those items around, for _my_ sake. A man without toiletry basics gets repulsive in a few days, and I prefer to not have repulsive in my bed.

It was pretty natural, too, when House brought in several changes of underwear, though it was annoying that he left James the dirty ones to wash. (Not me, I refuse to do House's 'dirty work.' At least, not without being paid, and House has long since passed up on that opportunity.) More clothes followed, more laundry. Sneakers. CDs. Books. He set our TiVo to record his shows, not all of which he watched. When I asked why he recorded so much, "You never know when you'll need an episode of Girls Next Door!"

And, of course, 'secret' stashes of Vicodin. House hid them, but I found plenty of vials tucked away in the bottom of drawers and nestled amongst other prescription drugs in the bathroom cabinet. There wasn't enough to call us narcotic traffickers (maybe neither one of _them_ had learned anything from the vindictive detective, but _I_ had, at least based on what James had told me). There's probably more Vicodin than I've found, but if I, who knows my own home backwards and forwards, haven't found it, I don't think anyone else will.

If House added his possessions, then, like a balance, he also removed my things. I mysteriously 'lost' cash, bras, my grandfather's wristwatch, various kinds of alcohol, and DVDs. I'd basically given a thief the keys to my home-- and my boyfriend's ass. After the first few losses, I stopped leaving cash lying around. The rest I didn't care about as much. And some of the things eventually found their way back to me, like when James brought back in his briefcase one of my missing, white bras. "Prank," he said. "House thought it'd be funny to wave it as a truce flag."

"Was it?"

I think he'd wanted to say 'no,' but he couldn't hold back the grin.

The other two bras are still missing.

Aside from House's multiplying possessions in my home, there was House himself parked on my furniture: sleeping in my bed, watching TV in my favorite spot on the couch, eating at my kitchen table... House's things could never be as much of a pain as he himself.

Still. I'd put up with fifty Houses if it meant having one James around. But that... not so much, lately. "I know you have to wake up early tomorrow, so I'm spending the night at House's," James explained the first time. Fair enough. And it was kind of nice to get a break and some private time away from them. I spent the evening waxing my legs (so much better to do it alone!), ordering in the Mexican food James can't stand, and enjoying the silence from the lack of House.

By the third time, four weeks later, I didn't want to be alone. I wanted James with me. I even half-missed House, with his obnoxious, offensive humor. Being alone isn't as much fun when it happens regularly. "Come back," I said to James when I called. If I hadn't told him that when he'd told me he was spending the night at House's again, it was my pride that stopped me. But loneliness trumps pride.

It was past midnight and they'd already had too much to drink. It'd be dangerous to drive back, I couldn't put James (...or House) at that kind of risk. He offered to go back home via taxi, but even if I missed him, I didn't want to be with fun-drunk-times-with-House James, either. I don't like that flavor nearly of James as much as all the other ones. In fact, I don't think I like him at all.

I heard House in the background: "She's just horny! And she can take care of it, I've seen her toy collection." That cemented it; I definitely didn't want them as they were. I told James to stay put and that I'd see him tomorrow. We exchanged, of course, 'I love you's. It was becoming more routine than ever.

House hadn't been wrong; I _was_ horny. And I did try to take care of it, but it just felt lonely and sad, getting off on a vibrator while my boyfriend and his certainly limp dick were messing around with another man elsewhere. With my permission. I put the vibrator back into the drawer, turned over in bed, and went to sleep.

That was about a week ago. Ever since that night James has been more mindful of me, spending every non-working evening in our home without my having to ask him. House hasn't been over as often either, only three times in eight days. I started to think that the invigorating zest of a new (sexual) relationship had come and gone for them (they'd certainly been having a lot of it in my home, and who knows how much where else, without me. I don't actually want to know. DADT.)

I was looking forward to the post-constant-sex phrase. Things would calm down would calm down for all three of us, I thought. James would still get to be with both of the people he loves, House would be a little less miserable, and I'd get to be with my boyfriend more. A three-way victory, I thought.

It was nice, those days. James and I spent more time together, both just hanging out and having sex, just the two of us. And seeing less of House almost made him pleasant; he's best taken in small doses. I started to feel good again. Less paranoid about having screwed everything up by pushing the threesome suggestion.

The thing is, House spent last night with us. That's hardly new. We fucked, ate, talked, fell asleep. The usual. It was getting to be routine. Another threesome night in the Volakis-Wilson household.

I woke up before dawn to find James entangled around House. Not me. House.

Up until now, James had snuggled with me during the night. He always lay in the center of our threesome, and though he could've just as easily wrapped his arms around House, he goes for me. I love half-waking up and finding James all around me; love falling to sleep again hugging him back. Like... he needs House for the crazy, destructive passion, the mind games. And I was there for a more trusting, affectionate love.

I shouldn't make too much out of it. It's just a bit of snuggling. So he hugged House instead of me. So what. I've also watched James fuck House, lick his ass, be reduced to a begging mess to get a dick inside him. Hugging is banal, inoffensive.

But I can't help but think it's a sign. Does rolling over, in his sleep, towards House instead of me, mean that James has subconsciously chosen House over me? I can't fight the subconscious. The whole _reason_ I started the threesome thing was because I know that feelings can't be molded to one's tastes. I thought that if he was 100% satisfied, getting everything-- and everyone-- he wanted, he wouldn't fall out of love with me. I thought it'd be better to be one of many than not one at all.

So, yeah, it was just a bit of hugging. But I can't help but worry about what it means.

It's made me think of all the times James has kissed House when not in the height of anger or lust. He touches House with such tenderness, like he's kissing the most precious being in the world. And maybe he is. I think of the natural, automatic way James slips his hand around House's waist, when he wants to bring him in closer. I think of the way James get so _obsessed_ , caught up, in House's affairs, leaving me completely aside.

This isn't a threesome. It's never been. It's James in two relationships. It's James in two relationships and wanting to screw House more than me, wanting to be with House more than me, maybe loving House more than me. If House is better loved, does that mean I've lost? And if I've lost, what does that mean? Do I stay in this battle? Or do I cut my losses and give up here, going on to some fight I can actually win?

Love as war. Hah.

It's not as if James has told me he loves House more. It's not even that he that acts way... most of the time. He ends all his calls with 'I love you,' we talk to each other all day long, in person and over the phone, we still have great sex (with or without House), and he still looks at me like I hold the moon in my hands. Just this morning, after my shock of finding him hugging House in his sleep, James brewed me a cup of coffee at precisely the right moment, so that it was at a perfect temperature for me to drink when I stumbled in the kitchen. Black, no sugar, in my favorite mug.

So it's not that he doesn't love me, or that he isn't considerate, in his special James Evan Wilson way. It's that he loves House just as much, or more, and Rose was right, I don't think I can deal with that. I thought I could suffer out a tie with House, but I can't deal with not being number one. I'd compete, but, again, this isn't the kind of thing you can fight out.

What now? Waiting might be a good idea, to see how things go. The threesome has, in some ways, gotten easier to deal with since when we started, and maybe it'll continue to improve. Maybe it won't. I don't know. "Patience," my father used to say, softly, so as to not scare the fish anymore than my whining had. But I'd start to talk, bored, and after my dad shushed me a few times, I went back home. I've never been good at waiting. I always want answers and solutions and all of my wishes granted _now_. Go-getters don't wait, they get. And this whole month has been nothing but waiting for better.

And there's another reason, aside from my usual impatience, that I can't wait. Peggy sent me an email a couple of days back, about the new diagnostics department her hospital is opening up. "They're taking resumes," she wrote. "Send yours! Dr. Brown likes what he's heard about you."

It's an opportunity. It's more than that: it's my chance to get my dream job. Me, in diagnostics. Me, _head_ of diagnostics. Me, as my own boss, the boss of others. Bossing others around. I was _born_ for that.

I might never get a chance like this again. I might be stuck forever in radiology, analyzing only a fraction of the problem at hand. I'd miss the whole picture, I wouldn't have the chance to shine at what I do best. I'd lose.

If I go, I'll lose James, but I'll win at one of my career goals. One loss, one win.

If I stay here, I might lose James to either my jealousy or his fickle heart. I'll definitely lose the job opportunity of a lifetime. I'd lose on both fronts: in love and career.

Goddamn it, the math doesn't change. It's still one vs. zero, and one will always be greater than zero. I'd hoped that if I went over all of it in my head, retracing all my steps, I could change the math. That I could reach an answer that led to Victories All Across The Board. Damn it, damn it, damn it.

I love James. I love the way he smells, the pitch of his voice, his posture. I love how generous he is with his patients, how kind he is with strangers, how gentle he is with me. I love how he's not-so-secretly manipulative, his schemes to get what he thinks is best, and how he really does mean for the best, all the time. I love the way he holds me, the way his hands flutter when he's telling a story, how he makes me laugh.

I love him. I love him so much, but the math is more reliable than feelings in the long run.

I'm sending in that application for that position as head of diagnostics. If they interview me, if we hit it off, if they offer me the job-- I'll go to Arizona and leave James to House.

* * *

It's after midnight. James and House are sleeping in my (the? our? whose is it, now that I'm trying to leave?) bedroom, and I'm here in the living room. The TV is on, the lights are off, and I'm on the couch with my chin over my knees, hugging my legs. I was shivering so I put on a t-shirts and a pair of pajama pants. (I haven't worn James' clothes since reaching my decision to try for the new job. If anyone's noticed, they haven't said a thing.)

I've got an interview tomorrow. In Phoenix. I'm flying out tomorrow; not quite at the ass-crack of the morning it is right now (2:37 A.M.), but still early. Peggy tells me it's not so much an interview as a getting-to-know-each-other session. I think she's exaggerating (and as if I needed the ego boost! I know I'm good!), but I'm pretty confident it'll go well. Dr. Brown laughed at my jokes over the phone, and other doctors on the staff have complimented my articles.

I haven't told James about applying for a job on the other side of the country (and I certainly haven't told House). What am I supposed to tell him? I still have to see how this plays out. If I don't get offered the position, after I've already broken up with James, then that'd be an automatic two losses.

Or maybe I'm secretly hoping I won't have to break it off with James. Hah-fucking-hah. I might as well call the Make a Wish Foundation, see what they can do for me. "Hi, I'm in a terminal relationship, I'd like a trip to Disney Land and to have my boyfriend's boyfriend vanished."

...You know, even with the sound off, the movie _Match Point_ still sucks.

I close my eyes. I could fall asleep right here. There's no reason why I can't go back to my own bed. But James might be curled around House again, his arm thrown over House's chest, and I don't want to have to see that. It'd be easy to fall asleep here. Easier, maybe, than with them. I try to clear my mind and breathe in deep and regular. I stay that way for a long time, my consciousness slowly fading away.

"Hey." What's that? I groan. What's that stupid sound and why is it bugging me. "Hey." Oh, god, it's House. I groan again and roll to the other side of the couch, away from House. Even when I avoid him, I can't escape him. "C'mon, rise and shine, pretty."

My eyelids don't open automatically, they're stuck shut with gunk. When did I fall asleep? "Whaddya want?" I slur. My eyes crack open a bit. It's that color of day just before the sun gets out: a hint of light, but mostly dark. "If you want a blow job, I'm sure James' will oblige." (House does love a blow job; I've given and seen him receive enough to know. That thigh of his makes fucking come with a serving of pain, but with a blow job, he can lie back and enjoy himself all the more. Why am I having these thoughts? I'm trying to get away from all this.)

"You're leaving Wilson."

Now _that_ wakes me up. I sit up straight and turn towards him. Oh, god, House knows. I can tell by the way he's looking at me. Serious and indomitable and-- angry? Why would he be angry, it's not like he's especially attached to me, not anymore than he is to any of the other regular fixtures in his life, like his employees or the mortar and pestle in his office. Oh, it's because he hates change, and me going away is a biggie.

"I thought my office was too far away to pry into," I say. It's true. I hadn't thought he'd bother snooping through my things there, otherwise I would've covered my tracks better than moving the job-application emails from out of the inbox to a folder labeled 'Arizona.'

"Eh, that got me the details. You're the one who gave away the big picture."

I sigh. What's there to say? "Good job, you P.I. wannabe, you caught me red-handed. Now what?" I challenge. "You're gonna rub it in my face? Tell James? Do a victory jig?" Hopefully that last jab-- a victory jig with a cane, hah!-- will piss him off, get him away from the subject of my leaving.

But he ignores the taunt. "Don't."

Okay, that's vague. "Don't what? Deflect to your wounded pride? Use sarcasm as defense?"

"Don't leave him," House says sharply. "Not real bright, are you."

Oh, fuck you, I think. "Fuck you," I say. "What does it matter to you? I go, more of him for you."

"Too _much_ for me," House growls-- but softly, to keep James from waking up, I guess. "I can't handle him on my own."

I laugh. It feels ragged, like tearing a piece of paper. "I should've known. You only want me to stay because you don't want the extra work. Well, don't worry, he's no harder to care for than a cactus. Water him every now and then and he'll be fine."

"You know that's not true," House says simply.

He's right. He's so right it embarrasses me; I turn my face away. Damn House and his relentless pursuit of the truth. It doesn't make him any less selfish, but it shines a light on my self-centeredness. James is no prickly plant who would thrive on the kind of 'water' House could provide. But-- but. "So what."

"Listen. I know Wilson." House leans in towards me. I've fucked him, I've had my fingers up his ass, I've even run my tongue along his spine, once, when I was too drunk to let my pride get in the way. He isn't even touching me now, but his voice, low and intense behind me, is almost too intimate for me. Too probing. I close my eyes, shudder.

House continues, "He needs someone to tell him his pancakes are delicious, to pick him every damn day at work, to _like_ it when he spoons them in his sleep." (He noticed that was bothering me? Damn him. Or maybe House hates it when James does it, and it's a coincidence that he picked up on my insecurity.) "Wilson also needs an asshole in his life. I can do _that_ , but not the other stuff. I'd pick him apart before I started to do the sensitive, doting boyfriend crap."

That's not fair, reminding me that James _does_ need me, when I've already decided. Not fair, poking me with how my selfishness would hurt James. "I'm not here to be convenient," I flare up. "If he 'needs' those things, he can hire a chauffeur or a whore or get himself a twinkie--" I turn back to House, to spit out the rest of this anger at him, but he looks so annoyed that I stop short. It's like he found a car in the one parking spot reserved for cripples.

"You're going to make me say it."

"Say what?"

"He loves you. A twinkie wouldn't cut it. Hell, _I_ don't cut it."

It's true. It's very true. Fuck it, no wonder House beats me as a diagnostician. He keeps to the truth, no matter how much it hurts. Me, I can't help the denial, sometimes. I take a deep breath, because I need it. I hate admitting to being wrong. But I can do it. It's been a hard lesson to learn, but I can do it. Because being wrong once is better than to keep screwing up and losing what matters to you.

I need more than a deep breath. I need several. I need to hide my face in my hands, to rake my hands through my hair. House is an asshole, but he gives me the space and time to mentally realign myself.

James does need me. He needs House too, but he always has. I've known that since before I fell in love with him. He loves House, but he loves me too, and as long as that's true-- I shouldn't let the other half of the equation get to me. I can't give up. Shouldn't have given up. Because what am I doing, breaking James' heart just because I'm too lily-delicate to withstand long-term competition?

I don't know. I really don't know. I'll likely walk around this circle again. I'll probably take daily strolls around this damn circle for as long as any of us are alive, because I don't see James falling out of love with either one of us anytime soon, nor me with him. I just have to get used to it. Because it hurts that I'm not the one and only, but I've never found anyone like James before. Everyone has their flaws, but at least I know what his are.

I'll probably reconsider this 'decision' a thousand times before my flight to Phoenix. But-- this is enough for now. I never wanted to leave James, and House, stupid, obnoxious House, helped me remember why. I shouldn't need a confidence boost from my biggest competition to convince me to stay in the game. (The irony, it cuts like an electric chain-saw.)

I shake my head, and, about as recovered from my doubts as I'm going to get for now, I make myself grin at House. "I used to think no one could beat you in greediness, but I was wrong. James beats you by a landslide."

House returns a smirk. "I could've told you that years ago."

Actually, yeah, I've known that all along about James. He's _demanding_. And wasn't that neediness the reason why I'd insisted on this threesome in the first place? Just House or me wouldn't be enough. (Nor, for that matter, would just me and House-- James needs a slew of oncology patients as well. But I'm not encouraging him to take any _more_ of them into bed. Grace was enough. And I'm not sure our bed would fit anymore people. ...Though I guess we could get a bigger bed if we had to, and I can't believe I'm going from barely accepting one more lover to calculating a change in furniture to compensate James' black-hole of neediness.)

Anyway. That James loves House and I isn't news. The news was that I might be too selfish to accept James' greediness. Two flaws that might otherwise be okay became incompatible when pitted each other. I don't expect James to get over his weaknesses. Can I expect to get over mine? I'll have to work on it.

"Hey," I say, remembering what House had warned me when I was still trying to convince him to join us in bed, "Didn't you say James 'isn't that guy'? Did you change your mind?"

House makes a face. "You keep making me say unpleasant things."

"Does that mean you were wrong?"

"Hey, _you_ said it, not me," he says. "But, yeah, maybe he is that guy."

Okay, I can't take not knowing anymore. "What does that even _mean_ , 'that guy'?"

House scoffs at me, as if I belong in a remedial first-grade class. "The guy that _lets_ himself be greedy and get it all. He used to be all self-sacrificing, twisting himself into knots to get what everyone else wanted."

I sigh and slump back. "That's all changed thanks to me and my project Let James Get What He Wants."

House smirks at me again. "If you're still feeling jealous--" What, does he read minds? He should keep his nose out of my thoughts, they're mine! At least let me keep that much to myself! "Here." He kisses me.

It's hardly our first kiss. James likes to watch us, House is a slut, and I like to make my boyfriend happy. (And House isn't unattractive, but the less I get into that, the better.) We all get something out of it.

But it's our first kiss without James watching. It's tame by comparison to our previous, lewd, performing-for-an-audience kisses. Just House's lips soft against mine, his stubble providing a contrast in texture. It's almost sweet. If House were capable of sweet. If I didn't know a thousand times better, I'd think that House has a thing for me too, but-- no. No. Couldn't be. That'd be way too complicated. I wouldn't even begin to know what to do if he did. And I'm sure his caring-muscle is too atrophied to be applied to more than one person at a time. So, no.

Though I'm kind of sorry that he's pulled away so soon. What can I say? House is a good kisser. "There. Now you're even," he declares.

"You have a strange definition of 'even.'" I lick my lips, then feel stupid.

"We could make it _more_ even," House suggests, making up for any lewdness lacking that was lacking in the kiss. I can't help but smile. I'll never love this jackass, but he definitely makes life more interesting. And I like interesting.

"Maybe some other time," I say, and pat his shoulder. "C'mon, let's go back to bed. I can still get a few hours of sleep."

* * *

I don't know if House wanted to give James and me space, or if he wanted to be alone (he _is_ an introvert), but either way-- oh, who am I kidding, of course it's the latter, House doesn't do things to be nice. Anyway, I guess he had enough of us for now, because he went back to his place after work.

So it's just me and James. I'm going to try to be better about not letting my jealousy and insecurity get out of hand, but it's still nice to have him all to myself.

I cancelled the interview. I told Peggy and Dr. Brown that I had to withdraw due to personal reasons. (Peggy sounded a little disappointed when I told her I had to take myself out of the running, but not too much. I wonder how much of a shot I really had there, given how little time I've spent working in diagnostics. Maybe they'd been thinking of hiring me as one of the underlings and not as the big boss. Well, I'll probably never know.)

God, my dream job, gone. That sucks. That really, really sucks. But did I really want to go all the way to _Arizona_? I'd just been feeling sorry for myself, moping because I couldn't hand James everything he wants and needs on a silver platter. Well, newsflash, sweetheart, he can't do the same for you, either.

I know I might still lose James, and not necessarily because of House. Other things happen. Relationships are complicated. Maybe one day I'll wake up bored with his morning conversation. And maybe House really will drive me away one day. Who knows? But I don't think he will, and I won't know unless I stick it out. And fuck giving up so easily! Losers give up! I'm in this for the long haul.

And, hey, there are other hospitals. Maybe I missed out on this chance-of-a-life job, but other ones will pop up. I'll fucking _make_ them pop up. Even with the clogging competition from PPTH, diagnostics is still a growing field, and more opportunities will open up within driving distance. When that day comes, I'll be the first to submit my application (and to flash my killer legs. Hey, whatever it takes to get hired, right?). I'm not giving up, not in love or in my goals. And you know what? I'm great at winning. I'll get what I want. _All_ of it.

I won't do what Rose did. I won't give in to jealousy. (...I should probably call her, apologize for throwing a hissy fit at her. Later.)

So. Here I am. James is reading The Washington Post, his back against the board of the bed, and I'm on my stomach reading _Emma_ (shut up, Jane Austen is an amazing writer!), my feet in the air. I couldn't be happier anywhere else.

"Amber?"

"Hmmm?" I don't look up, I've just started a long paragraph and I don't want to lose the train of thought. The newspaper rustles; he's folding it up, putting it onto the bed stand (neither one of us can bear the thought of filthy, filthy newsprint on the bed itself. House, on the other hand...).

"Should we go back to being just the two of us?"

I snap my head up towards him. His brow is knitted, his mouth down-turned. He looks more worried than that time he apologized in person for having left me all by my lonesome while he got smashed with House.

A million thoughts run through my mind. Is he feeling guilty? Or is he tired of House? And if he is, and I can't believe that this is worrying me, how will House take that? Not well. Not well at all. House needs James even more than James needs House. (Geez. I'm taking _House's_ feelings into consideration. I'm doomed.) "Why?" I ask.

"I don't know." James rubs at the back of his head. "You seemed so... down, these past couple of weeks. I thought you weren't happy, with how things are."

There. That there is just one of the many, many reasons I love my James Evan Wilson. He _sees_ me. (He's also stupidly self-sacrificing. Like giving up House is a good idea. Even I, who's got the most to lose from House sticking around, know that.) It's like a light-switch was flipped on inside me and I hummed with thousands of watts of feel-good-ness.

I find his hand and I hold it, playing with his fingers. "I wasn't," I admit. "Actually, I was going to leave you."

Wilson jolts, his jaw dropping the way it rarely ever does outside written text. "What!"

"I was going to move to Arizona," I grin. It's actually kind of fun to watch the horror grow exponentially in his face. "And start up a Diagnostics Department. I had it all worked out."

"Oh my god, Amber--" James pulls my hand towards his chest. "When was this? Are you still going? Don't--" he chokes. "If it's House--"

"It was," I say, and bask in the happiness from James clinging on so tightly, physically and emotionally. "But it's okay, he convinced me to stay."

"He-- House? _House_ convinced you?"

"Yup!" I pull my hand back my own chest, and James, not letting go, follows with his whole body, lying down. Face to face, he peers anxiously at me, trying to read clues of what's going on. Maybe it makes me a bad person, but it's pretty amusing. Petty payback for what he put me through? "We had a heart-to-heart yesterday, and I've decided I'm going to stick around. For now."

"For now?" he squeaks.

"I'll let you know," I smile. "But it should be a long, long while, because I love you."

His panic smoothes out into seriousness. "Amber, the moment you want us to break it off with House, or anything else I can do--"

"I think," I kiss his knuckles, "that as long as that offer stands, I'll be fine." I grin at him. "So don't you fucking screw it up by getting _too_ greedy."

"I wouldn't dream of it," he brushes my chin, my cheeks, with his hand. He smells so good, of freshly-laundered cotton, of newsprint, of himself. I fold an arm around his back and bring him closer for a kiss. God, I do love kissing him. I love him, and we're not perfect, but we'll figure it out together.

I'd say that we made love, but I don't use cheesy terms like that. But it is the best sex I've ever had, the mid-afternoon summer sun warm over our bodies. James has made me into such a sap, but if I get to be a sap with him-- and House-- I'll be okay. I'll be more than okay.


End file.
